Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (1884).djvu/167

Rh selves with even the whole of my asceticism. I consent to all this. Do ye as ye please!'

"And the pitris said, 'Venerable Brahmacharin, thou desirest of relieving us! But, foremost of Brahmanas, thou canst not dispel our affliction by thy asceticism. O child, O thou first of speakers, we too have the fruits of our asceticism. But, O Brahmana, it is for the loss of children that we are falling down into the unholy hell! The Grand-father himself hath said, that a son is a great merit. Prone as we are in this hole, our ideas are no longer clear; therefore, O child, we know thee not, although thy manhood is well-known on earth. Venerable thou art and of good fortune, who thus from kindness grievest for us worthy of pity and greatly afflicted. O Brahmama, listen, who we are.

We are Rishis of the Yayavara sect, of rigid vows. And, O Muni, from loss of children, we have fallen down from a sacred region. Our severe penances have not been destroyed; we have a thread yet. But we have one only thread now. But it matters little whether he is or is not. Unfortunate as we are, we have a thread in one known as Jaratkaru. The unfortunate one has crossed the Vedas and the Vedangas and has adopted asceticism alone. Of soul under complete control, of desires set high, observant of vows, and deeply engaged in ascetic penances, by him, from temptation of the merits of asceticism, have we been reduced to this deplorable state. He hath no wife, no son, no relatives. Therefore do we hang in this hole, our consciousness gone, like men having none to take care of us. If thou meetest him, O tell him, from thy kindness to ourselves,—Thy pitris, in sorrow are hanging with faces downwards in a hole. Holy one, take to wife and beget children. O thou of ascetic wealth, thou art, amiable one, the only thread that remaineth in the line of thy ancestors.—O Brahmana, the cord of virana roots that thou seest we are hanging by, is the cord representing our grown up race. And, O Brahmana, those threads of the cord of Virana roots that thou seest have been eaten away, are ourselves who have been eaten up by Time. This root that thou seest hath been half-eaten and by which we are hanging in this hole, is he that