Hallowed chains: Parents need care but are the kids alright?

In an interesting decision last week, the Supreme Court quashed a gift deed and restored the gifted property to a mother whose son had neglected her upon receiving the property, ruling that tribunals constituted to care for senior citizens are allowed to restore such properties if children fail to care for parents. What better context to look at parents and children in Sanskrit texts?

If the sacred texts in Sanskrit mirror our Indian sentimentality, you can imagine the plethora of stories there that extol the virtues of devotion to one’s parents – one immediately thinks of Rama, who willingly went to the forest to keep his father’s word, and of Shravana Kumara, who carried his aged, blind parents on his shoulders and took them on pilgrimage. There is even a saying in Sanskrit – “It is perhaps possible that a bad son may be born, but there is no bad mother.”

While I am hard-pressed to think of stories about bad mothers in Sanskrit, there are certainly stories of bad fathers. The Aitareya Brahmana tells us that the well-known king, Harischandra, had no sons. And so, on the problematic advice of the sage Narada, he prayed to the god Varuna for a son, promising Varuna that he would sacrifice the boy to him once he was born. And then, a son was born to him, whom he named Rohita. But predictably, he did not really want to sacrifice him. When Varuna appeared to demand the sacrifice, he said that he would sacrifice his son after ten days.

And so Varuna came after ten days, but Harischandra told him that he would sacrifice his son once the child’s teeth came in. Then, when Varuna demanded the sacrifice, Harischandra kept changing the timeline – once the son’s milk teeth fell off, then when the new set of teeth came in again, then once the son was invested with armour. Finally, once the son was given his set of armour and Varuna reminded Harischandra again, the king called his son and informed him that he was to be sacrificed. Then, Rohita, in a move we can all identify with, said no, took his bow, and immediately ran away. Harischandra was, of course, punished for this, with a stomach ailment that refused to go away.

Rohita wandered in the forests for six years, all the while thinking of solutions to this sacrifice problem. Ultimately, he found a sage Ajigarta by name, who had three sons, Shunahpuchcha, Shunahshepa, and Shunolangula. And he told the sage Ajigarta that he would offer him a hundred cows in exchange for one of the three sons to take his place as the sacrifice. Now Ajigarta, a truly horrifying father, decided that the middle son was dispensable and offered him up as Rohita’s substitute, in exchange for a hundred cows. When Rohita informed Harischandra of this, and Harischandra informed Varuna, Varuna was amenable to the substitute. Then began the sacrifice.

At the crucial time when Shunahshepa had to be bound to the sacrificial post, they found no man willing to bind him – so wicked was the act. And then Ajigarta, the boy’s own father, volunteered to bind him – only if he received another hundred cows, of course. And then, when no one agreed to actually perform the slaughter, Ajigarta, if you thought he could not be more deplorable, offered to do it for another hundred cows. He even whetted the knife and approached his son. Shunahshepa prayed to all the Vedic gods – they initially directed him to the other gods just as government officials in an old office do – from Prajapati to Agni, to Savitr, to Varuna, to Agni again, to the Vishve Devas, Indra, the Ashvins, and then finally Ushas, each of whom he praised with Vedic hymns. We don’t know if Ushas being the only female deity on the list had anything to do with it, but ultimately, once he worshipped Ushas, his fetters fell off, and Harischandra’s stomach ailment vanished without a trace! Ultimately, Shunahshepa cuts off ties to his father and is adopted by the sage Vishwamitra.

Perhaps the story can serve as a reminder that while love and respect for parents is a virtue, we must strengthen protections for children’s rights too, when the very parents who are meant to protect them turn against them.