Query about protection of children

[Guest guest]

Dear Sanjay, _/\o_

 

> Please be kind enough to send me a list of scriptural quotes that speak of

> the duty and absolute care for the young. I need as many sastric quotes as

> possible for an upcoming project.

 

You are always the protector of the deserving living beings, such as

brahmanas, children, cows, women and the diseased. Could you not give them

protection when they approached you for shelter? (SB 1.14.41)

 

As the father and mother are the friends and maintainers of their children,

as the eyelid is the protector of the eye, as the husband is the maintainer

and protector of a woman, as the householder is the maintainer and protector

of beggars, and as the learned is the friend of the ignorant, so the king is

the protector and giver of life to all his subjects. The trees are also

subjects of the king. Therefore they should be given protection. (SB 6.4.12,

similar: Garuda Purana 1.230.46 "The king is the refuge of the nation, the

parents that of the child, virtue is the refuge of all men and Lord Hari is

the refuge of everyone.")

 

It is wonderful that these elderly women do not have a higher sense of life

than we do. Indeed, we are most fortunate, for although we are children and

have been left to struggle in material life, unprotected by father and

mother, and although we are very weak, we have not been vanquished or eaten

by ferocious animals. Thus we have a firm belief that the Supreme

Personality of Godhead, who has given us protection even in the womb of the

mother, will protect us everywhere. (SB 7.2.38)

 

When the great leaders of the demons, who were being killed one after

another, saw the unprecedented exertion of the demigods in fighting, they

began to flee, scattering themselves in all directions. Simply to protect

their lives, they hastily fled from their homes, wives, children, animals

and household paraphernalia. Paying no heed to all these, the demons simply

fled. (SB 7.7.4-5)

 

The highest religious duty for a woman is to sincerely serve her husband,

behave well toward her husband’s family and take good care of her children.

(SB 10.29.24)

 

[Krsna and Balarama said:] O Father, you and mother Yasoda have

affectionately maintained Us and cared for Us so much! Indeed, parents love

their children more than their own lives. (SB 10.45.21)

 

They are the real father and mother who care for, as they would their own

sons, children abandoned by relatives unable to maintain and protect them.

(SB 10.45.22)

 

Men will no longer protect their elderly parents, their children or their

respectable wives. Thoroughly degraded, they will care only to satisfy their

own bellies and genitals. (SB 12.3.42)

 

He who lays down his life for the sake of his preceptor, a brahmana, a woman

or a child attains salvations. (Garuda Purana 2.38.16)

 

Dying, without the expectation of a reward, for the sake of Brahmanas and of

cows, or in the defence of women and children, secures beatitude to those

excluded (from the Aryan community, vahya.) (Manu-samhita 10.62)

 

Wise men should always bring up their sons in various moral ways, for

children who have knowledge of niti-shastra and are well-behaved become a

glory to their family. (Canakya's Niti-sastra 2.10)

 

 

There are also quotes about attachment to children. Equating attachment with

care seems to be the past(?) problem of ISKCON.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Your servant, bh. Jan

 

www.veda.harekrsna.cz (Bhakti-yoga Vedic Encyclopedia Vedic Library)