Hinduism and family planning

Sorry, it had to be Shataputri bhav...

Eek!!! Sita would be getting saline with those Sahastraputrawati..:) But think about it..the Kings and Royals generally had fewer kids and in fact, many didnt have kids. So having fewer kids is common amongst Royals? Implying that it is only lower class folks who have more children - many hands make light work. :) Thanks hora..that is truly a great input. :) And not blocked as yet. :)

I've been thinking of this blessing for quite sometime now. :) Generally it is Soubhagyawati bhav. Sahastraputrawati bhav - possibly implies that may you have a large kingdom and many subjects. Sahastra incidentally is not 100. :) It is 100000. :) So it possibly meant subjects rather than progenies. Vishnu sahastra namas, remember? So it is 1 lakh.. Nobody lives for one lakh years! She would have to live that long to have that many children..or at least 1/3rd that period. lol

That is why we are called mortals and they immortals.

"Gods came to earth to teach people the way to lead an ideal life on how to respect your parents, how to follow the dharma, how to be kind and so on and so forth." I so very much agree that sentence of yours. And based on that I do take a lesson from Sitaji. Sitaji showed that a woman must love her child so much that she should prevent any risk to the child. Therefore, a woman should not have a child unless the environment to have a child is safe enough. She also exhibited her love for her husband and her protective nature towards Laxmanji. If while doing some household chores in the forest the child would stray in the jungle, her husband and Lakshmanji would have to go out in search for the child, and be at risk. While she knew they were capable of killing any animal and any demon, she still preferred them not to be troubled. That is a true pativrata lady. Not somebody who doesn't give a damn and creates hunger on regular basis quite indifferent to the fact that her husband is struggling to pay rent and tution fees, and one fine day collapses with some nervous breakdown or heart attack. I see a vast difference between the two natures. Don't you?

Hey, it is not very difficult to be disciplined, right? Especially if it entails responsibility. We are already responsible with our home loans, and car loans. A child is as much of a financial responsibility, if not more. By calling ourselves mortals we give ourselves the license to do things which gods would not approve of. That is not holy

I apologise if I hurt your sentiments. I meant to say that our gods show us the way, so we must emulate those. I was kind of disturbed when a BJP karyakarta who is my neighbor said that at the time of independence Hindus were more than 90 percent, and now, they are less than 80 percent. A few months ago, VHP member asked Hindus to have more children. This is so silly! Instead of educating everybody in school, and making people realize that two is the most they can have, we are being asked to keep up the ratios!

Deccan Chronicle reported that remark of VHP member. And I do think Sitaji was very virtuous lady. She loved her unborn child even before concieving. Had she had a child in the forest, it would be difficult for her to do household chores and keep an eye on the child who could wander off in the forest and be at risk because of wild animals. There is a hidden message that I take from this. It is - as long as you cant secure your child do not have one. That is what I understood from this. May be others dont question such things but we do have a very sophisticated and advanced religion. It is just that it has been reduced to just rituals.

That is the culture we have now. Everyone wants what they want Now!

Yeah, babies are worth the wait. In ancient days, I am told, ladies did have babies much later on in their lives. Gandhari is one such lady in one of our epics. She lost her 100 grown up sons and so god gave her one child instead in late stage of her life. The problem out here is people are in such rush to have children. They get perturbed if they dont conceive in less than 6 month!

No. Draupadi did have more children, but they were not as illustrious as Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu was not Draupadi's son. He was the son of Subhadra, Krishna's sister married to Arjun. After Yudhishtir (Dharmaraj) played the trick on Dronacharya - Ashwathama hatha ha - softly asking Narova Kunjaro va, leading to acharya being shocked and being caught unawares by Arjun's arrows - Acharya's son Ashwathama burnt down the tent in which Draupadi's children were sleeping. So all her children were burnt alive - something that was against the rules of those days because tent was burnt in the night. In despair Draupaid asked that Ashwathama be punished. Ashwathama was a blessed person. He had a big diamond like thing on his forehead. That ensured he would never be hungry or thirsty or in pain throughout his life. But because of Draupadi's pain, Pandavas pulled out that diamond from Ashwathama's head leaving Ashwathama in immense pain, and forever hungry and thirsty. Draupadi asked that he be left alive to suffer that misery. Ashwathama incidentally is a cheeranjivi like hanumanji. So when we meet a hungry person or thirsty person, or somebody in pain, we need to recognize Ashwathama in him and try to give him some water, food, and medication, if need be. That - is our culture. Only problem is not everybody knows it as culture. They only watch it as serial without thinking the underlying thoughts. :( I do think it was unfair on part of Dharmaraj to have played that trick. So if Ashwathama did what he did, it was, in a way justified. And Draupadi should have criticized her husband for what he did, and accepted the punishment however hard it came as something she got for her husband's mistake. But then, we can think. We cant really take it up with them, can we? :)

You had me in splits.. Well our re-producing is costing the world..not only us!!! We have limited land, we can only produce so much food and when too many mouths are there to feed the cost of that food climbs. So the best policy is to bring down those numbers, irrespective of which religion. Charity begins at home they say. So I am asking people from my religion to re-examine their thinking. :) As to Rama's footprints, I must say I saw the armory worn by Maharaja Rana Pratap, and believe me, it was heavy. The guy must've been pretty tall and hefty to carry that much. He lived less than 500 years ago! So yes, we are decreasing in size..the tall and hefty amongst us (John Abraham, Salman Khan), are outdated..

No thesids..we need a law that says one child - and no more. You want a second child? Go and adopt somebody from the street and take tax concessions. If you have one of your own - you pay 4 times the taxes. Why should government be subsidizing everything, including irresponsibility? After all, somebody who is hardworking and paying taxes is indirectly paying for that irresponsibility. But it is being made a religious thing - I read in Deccan Chronicle a few months ago - a VHP karyakarta asking Hindus to have more children. I thought that was rotten.

Poor SRK Seems he stands no where Well, you are right. Larger population does have its downs and today, the ups are quite numbered. My grandparents (maternal) had only two daughters. My parents have two sons. My bro has one and I have none.... Hope we are on the right tracks to do our role and save the world. Charity does begin at home no doubt, but it is not a religion based thing. Family planning is a global concern and people need to think more towards the global issue than their own pleasures. A tough rule like the one in China (despite its flaw which got projected after the earthquake a few years back) would be good to control population in India but then, we are still not going to stick to that rule... The Government had a law some couple of years back that Govt. employees or applicants will not be accepted in case they have more than two kids but we do have people with more.

Not really. I would say the lady chose to abstain in the interests of children - rather the safety of children. Its something that we do need to review as the symbol of all virtues has indicated that women should not have children if it is unsafe for the child, and difficult for husband and family to maintain. But nowadays, nobody reads such lessons. They only pray to the goddess as rituals without reading each one of her virtues.

maximax..she did leave around 9 but was in forest for another 14 years of which 13 she stayed with her husband so I do think that she could've had a child but deliberately chose not to as it wouldn't be safe for her children. That to me is a great score towards her feeling of motherhood. Only a mother would be concerned about her child so much as to abstain rather than risk the life of the child in such unsafe environment. So why is it that people who cant afford and who claim to be Hindus have more children? How can they call themselves Hindus, if they do so?

Dear Lekhya, it looks like you and thesids are the only two who really understood what I wanted to focus on. The epic is great, and so are the gods. They told us everything we wanted to know about the "***" life, but we are such fools! We turn a blind eye on such important things.

jaihobalodiji - if our gods do not want their children to be deprived of luxuries - why are we being so careless about our children? Why cant we love our children a bit more

Its one thing for religion to say it is against family planning and another thing to incur the child rearing costs. Many people dont even know how to bring up children. They turn them into social liabilities! Surely such people should be punished for that! What were they doing when they should've been concentrating on bringing up their child! Our religion, as I understand it, has in-built principles of family planning, if only people would closely examine it as I've pointed out. But there are people who believe that having a girl child after three sons is a good omen! So it is obvious to me that some priest has been bribed to say that to avoid embarassment, and such thoughts have been passed down the generations..