Page:The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (Volume 1).pdf/386

372 again acquire religious merit. There is no sin in this. For a man polygamy is an act of merit, but for a woman it is very sinful to betake herself to a second husband after the first. Considering all this, and remembering too that sacrifice of thy own self is censurable, O, liberate to-day without loss of time thy own self, thy race, and these thy children (by abandoning me)!

Vaisampayana continued, -"Thus addressed by her, O Bharata, the Brahmana embraced her, and they both began to weep in silence, afflicted with grief,"

Thus ends the hundred and sixtieth section in the Vaka-badha Parva of the Adi Parva.

Vaisampayana said "On hearing these words of her afflicted parents, the daughter was filled with grief, and she addressed them, saying. --'Why are you so afflicted and why do you so weep, as if you have none to look after you? O, listen to me and do what may be proper ! There is little doubt that you are bound in duty to abandon me at a certain time. Sure to abandon me once, O, abandon me now and save everything at the expense of myself alone! Men desire to have children, thinking that childrsn would save them in this as well as in the region hereafter). O, cross 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 regions; therefore is the child called by the learned Putra (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, so there is little doubt that he will perish if thou diest now. If thou, my father diest and my brother followeth thee, the funeral cake of the Pitris will be suspended and they will be greatly injured. Left behind by my father and brother, and by my mother also (for she will not survive her husband and son), I shall be plunged deeper and deeper in woe and ultimately perish in great distress. There can be little doubt that if thou escape from this danger as also my mother and infant brother, then thy race and the ancestral) cake will be perpetuated. The son is one's own self; the wife is one's friend ; the daughter, how. ever, is the source of trouble. Do thou save thyself, therefore, by removing that source of trouble, and do thou thereby set me in the path