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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA [Ch. IV and misery. Even under these pecuniary circumstances they marched together on the journeys of life, experiencing all sorts of suffering by holding the ideal of the sacred union of the husband and wife and their life-long companionship before them.
Only one instance of infidelity of the wife has indirectly been referred to in the text. An another man enjoys the wife of a Sramanopāsaka' in his absence. But the effect of this sinful act does not affect him, because he is not attached to his wife or any other worldly object. But it does not at all reflect ūpon the general moral breakdown of the family life. On the contrary it may safely be said that the conjugal life as depicted above appears to be an abode of love and peace reigning over the whole family. Relation among different members of the family
In the society, as depicted in the BhS, reverence, devotion and unquestioned obedience to the parents were regarded as the highest natural duties of the son, for it was the spontaneous consequence of the seemly behaviour and great veneration towards all the elders of the family.”
Even when a son desired to undertake the state of houselessness by renouncing the worldly life, he did so with the permission of his parents who themselves arranged and performed the consecration ceremony of his departure from the state of houseness with great pomp and grandeur. They also accompanied him on his way to the taking of ascetic life to offer him as the highest alms to his future religious teacher, as it is evidenced in the case of the prince, Jamāli, who was presented by his parents to Lord Mahāvīra.
It was the duty of the parents to bring up their son with best care, attention and education in the first part of his life till he reached the stage of youth and became capable to shoulder the responsibilities of the family and to gratify the five kinds of human desires,' viz, sound, touch, taste, object of beauty and smell.
1 BhS, 8, 5, 328. 1b, 9, 33, 384 ; 11, 9, 417; 13, 6, 491-92. 3 Ib, 9, 33, 384-385,
4' Ib, 11, 11, 429,
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