The Mahabharata/Book 1: Adi Parva/Section 161

Section CLXI. *( Vaka-badha Parva continued. )* Vaisampayana said, "Hearing these words of her afflicted parents, the daughter was filled with grief, and she addressed them saying, 'Why are ye so afflicted and why do ye so weep as if ye have none to look after ye? O, listen to me and then do what may be proper! There is little doubt that ye are bound in duty to abandon me at one time. Sure to be abandoned once, O abandon me now and save everything at the expense of myself alone! Men desire to have children thinking that children would save them (in this as well as the region hereafter). O cross ye the stream of your difficulties by means of my poor self as if I were a raft! A child rescueth his parents in this and the other region; therefore is the child called by the learned *Puttra* (*rescuer*). The ancestors desire daughter's sons from me (as a special means of salvation). But (without waiting for my children) I myself will rescue them by protecting the life of my father! This my brother is of tender years. There is little doubt that he will perish if thou diest now. If thou my father diest and my brother too followeth thee, the funeral cake of the *Pitris* will be suspended and they will be greatly wronged. Left behind by my father and brother, and by my mother also (for she will not survive her husband and son), I shall, plunged deeper and deeper in woe, ultimately perish in great distress. There can be little doubt that if thou escape from this danger as also my mother and infant brother, both thy race and the (ancestral) cake will be perpetuated. The son is one's own self; the wife is one's friend; the daughter, however, is the source of trouble. Do thou save thyself, therefore, by sacrificing that source of trouble, and do thou thereby set me in the path of virtue. A girl as I am, O father, destitute of thee I shall be helpless and plunged in woe, and shall have to go everywhere. It is therefore that I am resolved to rescue my father's race and to share the merit of that act by accomplishing this difficult task. If thou, O best of Brahmanas, goest thither (unto the Rakshasha) leaving me here, then I shall be very much pained. Therefore, O father, be kind to me! O thou best of men, for our sake, for that of virtue, and also of thy race, save thyself, abandoning me whom at one time thou shalt be constrained to abandon! There need be no delay, O father, in doing that which is inevitable. What can be more painful than that when thou hast ascended to heaven we shall have to go about begging our food, like dogs, from strangers? But if thou art rescued with thy relations, from these difficulties, I shall then live happily in the region of the celestials! It hath been heard by us that if after bestowing thy daughter in this way thou offerest oblations to the gods and the celestials, they will certainly be propitious to thee!'" Vaisampayana continued, "The Brahmana and his wife, hearing these various lamentations of their daughter, became sadder than before and the three began to weep together. Their son then of tender years, beholding them and their daughter thus weeping together, lisped these words in sweet tones, his eyes expanding with delight. 'Weep not, O father, nor thou, O mother, nor thou, O sister!' And smilingly the child approached each of them, and at last taking up a blade of grass said in glee, 'With this I will slay that Rak- shasa that eateth human beings!' And although they all had been plunged in woe, yet hearing what the child lisped so sweetly, joy appeared on their faces. Then Kunti, thinking that to be the proper opportunity, approached the group and said these words. Indeed, her words revived them as nectar reviveth a person that is dead." Thus ends the hundred and sixty-first Section in the Vaka-badha of the Adi Parva.