Niyog Pratha

Posted by Harsh Nevatia Nov 28, 2006

In ancient Hindu society there existed a practice known as Niyog Pratha. Pratha means practice. A woman who was childless because her husband was impotent was allowed to conceive through her brother-in-law. The child belonged to the couple and the brother-in-law had no claim over it. In our society today, surrogate motherhood is not unheard of. Niyog Pratha was surrogate fatherhood. It was much less complicated, legally and emotionally, than surrogate motherhood.

You may be aware that Hindus have a desire bordering on desperation for a male offspring. There is a peculiar reason for this. A male during his lifetime is required to perform certain rituals that appease the souls of his ancestors. If a couple does not have a son then there would be no one to carry out the rituals and the souls of the ancestors would remain eternally unappeased. This thought has no fundamental basis. It is one of the many practices that insidiously crept into the religion during the Brahmanical period and got reinforced through the ages. Fortunately now more reasonable thinking is starting to prevail and the absence of a son is not looked upon as a liability at least among the urban educated. But the Niyog Pratha must have been introduced as a result of the ‘necessity’ of having a male child.

For royalty the need for a male offspring was even greater. Daughters got married and went to live with their husbands. A son was needed to inherit the kingdom and continue the lineage as well as to perform the above-mentioned rituals. In the article Veda Vyasa and the Mahabharata we see that Vyasa was called upon to impregnate the royal widows. As was seen in the article The Birth of Krishna Dwaipayana, Vyasa was also Satyavati’s son and therefore a half brother to the deceased king.

Such practices were not unique to Hinduism. One finds references to them in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy Chapter 25 Verse 5 reads, “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.” Genesis Chapter 16 Verse 2 permits surrogate motherhood through the maid.