Shloka 13
Matsya Purana — Paurava Genealogy: Bharata
भरस्व पुत्रं दुष्यन्त मावमंस्थाः शकुन्तलाम् रेतोधां नयते पुत्रः परेतं यमसादनात् त्वं चास्य धाता गर्भस्य सत्यमाह शकुन्तला //
bharasva putraṃ duṣyanta māvamaṃsthāḥ śakuntalām retodhāṃ nayate putraḥ paretaṃ yamasādanāt tvaṃ cāsya dhātā garbhasya satyamāha śakuntalā //
O Duṣyanta, acknowledge and support your son; do not slight Śakuntalā. A son, as the bearer of one’s seed, leads a departed father up from the abode of Yama. And you are indeed the begetter of this child in the womb—Śakuntalā speaks the truth.
FAQs
This verse does not discuss Pralaya; it teaches dharma around lineage—how a son is believed to rescue a departed father from Yama’s realm, emphasizing continuity of family and ritual duty rather than cosmic dissolution.
It frames a king’s and householder’s duty to acknowledge and maintain legitimate offspring and to avoid unjustly dishonoring a woman who speaks truth; it also reflects the Purāṇic ethic that progeny sustains ancestral rites and the father’s posthumous welfare.
No Vāstu or temple-architecture rule appears here; the ritual implication is ancestral/afterlife doctrine—sonhood (putra) is linked with freeing the father from Yama’s abode, aligning with śrāddha and lineage-based rites.