"'Bhishma said, "Listen, O king, with concentrated attention to me as I recite to thee in detail the circumstances connected with the origin of gold as understood by me. When my father Santanu of great energy departed from this world, I proceeded to Gangadwara for performing his Sraddha. Arrived there, I commenced the Sraddha of my father. My mother Jahnavi, coming there, rendered me great help. Inviting many ascetics crowned with success and causing them to take their seats before me, I commenced the preliminary rites consisting of gifts of water and of other things. Having with a concentrated mind performed all preliminary rites as laid down in the scriptures, I set myself to duly offer the obsequial cake. I then saw, O king, that a handsome arm, adorned with Angadas and other ornaments, rose up, piercing the ground, through the blades of Kusa grass which I had spread. Beholding that arm rise from the ground, I became filled with wonder. Indeed, O chief of Bharata's race, I thought that my father had come himself for accepting the cake I was about to offer. Reflecting then, by the light of the scriptures, the conviction soon came upon me that the ordinance does occur in the Vedas that the cake should not be presented into the hand of him whose Sraddha is performed. Even this was the conviction that took possession of my mind, viz., that the obsequial cake should never be presented in this world by a man into the visible hand of the man whose obsequial rites are performed. The Pitris do not come in their visible forms for taking the cake. On the other hand, the ordinance provides that it should be presented on the blades of Kusa grass spread on the earth for the purpose.Mbh 13.84.2a · Mahabharata · ANUSASANA PARVA
Mbh 13.84.2a
Mahabharata · translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
Themes in this passage
FamilyLeadershipCharityNatureWealth
Family in other traditions
The same theme, as Christianity, Islam, Hellenism and Taoism address it.
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.Luke 12:53 · Bible · Luke
Unto the men (of a family) belongeth a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, and unto the women a share of that which parents and near kindred leave, whether it be little or much - a legal share.Quran 4:7 · Quran · Women
“O wretched husband of a wretched wife! Born with one fate, to one unhappy life! For sure one star its baneful beam display’d On Priam’s roof, and Hippoplacia’s shade. From different parents, different climes we came. At different periods, yet our fate the same! Why was my birth to great Aëtion owed, And why was all that tender care bestow’d? Would I had never been!—O thou, the ghost Of my dead husband! miserably lost! Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone! And I abandon’d, desolate, alone! An only child, once comfort of my pains, Sad product now of hapless love, remains! No more to smile upon his sire; no friend To help him now! no father to defend! For should he ’scape the sword, the common doom, What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come! Even from his own paternal roof expell’d, Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. The day, that to the shades the father sends, Robs the sad orphan of his father’s friends: He, wretched outcast of mankind! appears For ever sad, for ever bathed in tears; Amongst the happy, unregarded, he Hangs on the robe, or trembles at the knee, While those his father’s former bounty fed Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread: The kindest but his present wants allay, To leave him wretched the succeeding day. Frugal compassion! Heedless, they who boast Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, Shall cry, ‘Begone! thy father feasts not here:’ The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, To my sad soul Astyanax appears! Forced by repeated insults to return, And to his widow’d mother vainly mourn: He, who, with tender delicacy bred, With princes sported, and on dainties fed, And when still evening gave him up to rest, Sunk soft in down upon the nurse’s breast, Must—ah what must he not? Whom Ilion calls Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls,[279] Is now that name no more, unhappy boy! Since now no more thy father guards his Troy.Iliad 22.46a · Iliad · 22
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril.Tao Te Ching 52.2 · Tao Te Ching
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