nything that is disagreeable to
his wife, seeing that happiness, joy, and virtue,--everything dependeth
on the wife. A wife is the sacred field in which the husband is born
himself. Even Rishis cannot create creatures without women. What
happiness is greater than what the father feeleth when the son running
towards him, even though his body be covered with dust, claspeth his
limbs? Why then dost thou treat with indifference such a son, who hath
approached thee himself and who casteth wistful glances towards thee for
climbing thy knees? Even ants support their own eggs without destroying
them; then why shouldst not thou, a virtuous man that thou art, support
thy own child? The touch of soft sandal paste, of women, of (cool) water
is not so agreeable as the touch of one's own infant son locked in one's
embrace. As a Brahmana is the foremost of all bipeds, a cow, the foremost
of all quadrupeds, a protector, the foremost of all superiors, so is the
son the foremost of all objects, agreeable to the touch. Let, therefore,
this handsome child touch thee in embrace. There is nothing in the world
more agreeable to the touch than the embrace of one's son. O chastiser of
foes, I have brought forth this child, O monarch, capable of dispelling
all thy sorrows after bearing him in my womb for full three years. O
monarch of Puru's race, 'He shall perform a hundred
horse-sacrifices'--these were the words uttered from the sky when I was
in the lying-in room. Indeed, men going into places remote from their
homes take up there others' children on their laps and smelling their
heads feel great happiness. Thou knowest that Brahmanas repeat these
Vedic mantras on the occasion of the consecrating rites of infancy.--Thou
art born, O son, of my body! Thou art sprung from my heart. Thou art
myself in the form of a son. Live thou to a hundred years! My life
dependeth on thee, and the continuation of my race also, on thee.
Therefore, O son, live thou in great happiness to a hundred years. He
hath sprung from thy body, this second being from thee! Behold thyself in
thy son, as thou beholdest thy image in the clear lake. As the
sacrificial fire is kindled from the domestic one, so hath this one
sprung from thee. Though one, thou hast divided thyself. In course of
hunting while engaged in pursuit of the deer, I was approached by thee, O
king, I who was then a virgin in the asylum of my father. Urvasi,
Purvachitti, Sahajanya, Menaka, Viswachi and Ghrita