SB 4.27.7
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
TEXT 7
- duhitṟr daśottara-śataṁ
- pitṛ-mātṛ-yaśaskarīḥ
- śīlaudārya-guṇopetāḥ
- paurañjanyaḥ prajā-pate
SYNONYMS
duhitṟḥ — daughters; daśa-uttara — ten more than; śatam — one hundred; pitṛ — like the father; mātṛ — and mother; yaśaskarīḥ — glorified; śīla — good behavior; audārya — magnanimity; guṇa — good qualities; upetāḥ — possessed of; paurañjanyaḥ — daughters of Purañjana; prajā-pate — O Prajāpati.
TRANSLATION
O Prajāpati, King Prācīnabarhiṣat, in this way King Purañjana also begot 110 daughters. All of these were equally glorified like the father and mother. Their behavior was gentle, and they possessed magnanimity and other good qualities.
PURPORT
Children begotten under the rules and regulations of the scriptures generally become as good as the father and mother, but children born illegitimately mainly become varṇa-saṅkara. The varṇa-saṅkara population is irresponsible to the family, community and even to themselves. Formerly the varṇa-saṅkara population was checked by the observation of the reformatory method called garbhādhāna-saṁskāra, a child-begetting religious ceremony. In this verse we find that although King Purañjana had begotten so many children, they were not varṇa-saṅkara. All of them were good, well-behaved children, and they had good qualities like their father and mother.
Even though we may produce many good children, our desire for sex that is beyond the prescribed method is to be considered sinful. Too much enjoyment of any of the senses (not only sex) results in sinful activities. Therefore one has to become a svāmī or gosvāmī at the end of his life. One may beget children up to the age of fifty, but after fifty, one must stop begetting children and should accept the vānaprastha order. In this way he must leave home and then become a sannyāsī. A sannyāsī's title is svāmī or gosvāmī, which means that he completely refrains from sense enjoyment. One should not accept the sannyāsa order whimsically; he must be fully confident that he can restrain his desires for sense gratification. King Purañjana's family life was, of course, very happy. As mentioned in these verses, he begot 1,100 sons and 110 daughters. Everyone desires to have more sons than daughters, and since the number of daughters was less than the number of sons, it appears that King Purañjana's family life was very comfortable and pleasing.