Mahabharata – 170
by
Sankar Mukherjee
and
Dr Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya
 

 Aadivamsavatarana Parva
 All hail, the Mothers’ Day!
The great king Santanu of the Paurava race had two sons by his second wife Satyavati. With  Santanu’s demise the elder of the two brothers Chtringada ascended the throne. But it is a pity that he lost his life at a battle. Consequently the younger one Vichitivirya was crowned as
the king of the Kurus. Bhisma got him married to two most beautiful princesses from the kingdom of Kasi.But man propose but god disposes. The younger prince also died of tuberculosis. So the Kaurava race seem to come to a halt. The next generation was not as yet born. Who would continue the line of the Kurus?Besides  Chitrangada and Vichitrivirya the late king Santanu had another son in Bhisma whom we have already alluded to.Bhisma was the eldest of the three brothers.He was born to Santanu by his first wife the river Ganga. But Bhisma promise in his youth that he would not marry ever.Now that both his younger brothers had passed away Bhisma’s step mother Satyavati requested Bhisma to ascend the throne and see to that the royal line was preserved.It logically follows that Bhisma should get married as well but Bhisma was made of a different stuff he would never deviate a micron from his promises. Therefore, come what may Bhisma would not marry. How could the then royal be preserved? The family of the Kurus faced a real problem.
In this context Bhisma told his step mother Satyavati two stories one after another. The first story dwelled on how the warrior clan or the khashtriyas were exterminated from the face of the globe. The second story narrated how the wives of the khashtriya warrior got their
children deemed to continue the race of their husband, by  receiving the seed from the brahmin males. The legitimation of such stories is that marriage earlier was meant to continue the line of the husband.
The bride groom is to marry those days for getting his family line continued. The pleasures of conjugal life was of secondary importance.
That the woman bore a child would be of no help to her family line.
This was a patriarchal legitimation. In short women were looked upon as mere tools to bring forth children for their husband family line.
This still continues in India today.
Be that as it may, after retelling the tales from the past said to Satyavati --
Hearing these tales from the past, Oh mother! do as you like, in regard to the matter in hand.
Bhishma, continued --  Oh mother! I shall now tell you  the means by which the Bharata lineage may be kept going. Let a great Brahmana be invited by promising wealth, and let him raise offspring in the wives of Vichitravirya.
Two things are significant from the above.

I)                    In those days males could be hired to get a woman pregnant.

II)                   Even great brahmins could be hired to that end.

In this context the present day civilization should perhaps get rid of the pejorative sense with which the term prostitution is associated.
The celestial prostitutes like Urvashi and Rambha are looked up as demi goddesses. And why not have due reverence for the prostitutes of today? In cases of in vitro fertilization the seeds of men are collected to make woman pregnant. Call the men storing their seeds in the sperm bank for women to become fruitful prostitutes? As things stand today the womb of a living woman organically connected to the body of the woman is a must for a child to be born. So a son belongs to her mother and her mother’s line and not to her father’s line. The great saint of Upanishada came across a child who did not know who his father was. He knew his mother Jabala. And he was christened by the great saint as Jaabaali or the son of mother Jabala.
We, each one of us, Oh dear reader the children of our mothers.

All hail, the Mothers’ Day!