From Book One of The Mahābhārata and for fathers everywhere.
“A son, the wise say, is the man himself born from himself; therefore a man will look upon the mother of his son as his own mother. The son born from his wife is as a man’s face in a mirror; and looking at him brings as much joy to a father as finding heaven brings to a saint. Men, burned by the sorrows of their hearts and sickly with disease, rejoice in their wives, as overheated people do in water. No matter how aggravated, a man should say no unkind things to his loving women, for in them he sees contingent his love, his joy, and his merit. Women are forever one’s sacred field of birth – are even the seers able to have children without one? A son stumbles and covered with dirt embraces his father – is there joy beyond that?
