Mahabharata — Anushasana Parva, Shloka 15
गोमूल्यनिर्णयः — The Determination of Value through the Cow
Nahuṣa–Cyavana Episode
यथा चतुर्ष वर्णेषु द्वयोरात्मास्य जायते । आनन्तर्यात् प्रजायन्ते तथा बाह्या: प्रधानत:
yathā caturṣu varṇeṣu dvayor ātmāsya jāyate | ānantaryāt prajāyante tathā bāhyāḥ pradhānataḥ ||
Bhīṣma said: “Just as among the four social orders, a son begotten within one’s own order—or from a woman of the next lower order without skipping an intermediate order—is counted as belonging to the father’s own order, so too, when the begetting crosses a boundary by skipping an intervening order, the offspring is regarded, in the main, as ‘external’ to the father’s order and is assigned the mother’s lower status. In the same way, among the nine mixed communities (such as Ambaṣṭha, Pāraśava, Ugra, Sūta, Vaidehaka, Cāṇḍāla, Māgadha, Niṣāda, and Āyogava), if they beget children within their own community or with the next lower community, the child is considered of the father’s community; but if they beget after skipping one community, the child is treated as belonging to the mother’s inferior community.”
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Bhīṣma lays out a rule-of-thumb for assigning a child’s social status in cases of unions across groups: if the union is within the same group or with the immediately lower group (no skipped intermediary), the child is counted with the father; if an intermediate group is skipped, the child is treated as ‘outside’ the father’s group and aligned with the mother’s inferior status.
In the Anuśāsana Parva’s instructional setting, Bhīṣma is explaining to Yudhiṣṭhira normative classifications of mixed communities and descent. This verse extends a principle stated for the four varṇas to nine named mixed jāti-groups, describing how offspring are categorized depending on whether the union crosses adjacent or non-adjacent social boundaries.