Pandu's Austerities and Plan to Ascend to Heaven

Pandu had reached a state few mortals ever do. In the forest, through supreme austerities, he had become a brahmarshi — a sage of the highest order. The siddhas and charanas (celestial beings and bards) counted him as a brother or a friend. Other rishis protected him like a son. Through his own power, he had visited heaven. Now, with his wives Kunti and Madri, he wished to cross the Shatashringa mountain and ascend to the celestial realms permanently. As he prepared to lead them north, the ascetics who lived on the mountain stopped him. They described what lay ahead: the playgrounds of gods, gandharvas, and apsaras; Kubera’s garden on uneven ground; the sloping banks of great rivers and impenetrable mountain caverns. Then came the regions of perpetual snow, treeless, lifeless, where no bird or animal could survive. "The only thing that can go there is air, siddhas and supreme rishis," they said. "O bull among the Bharata lineage! How can these princesses cross that king of the mountains? Do not make them sink in that misery." Pandu’s reply shifted the argument from geography to theology. "O illustrious ones! It is said that one without a son has no door to heaven. I have no son and I tell you that I am in great sorrow." He laid out the doctrine of the four debts every man is born with: to the gods, to the sages, to other men, and to his ancestors. A man who does not discharge them has no claim to any world after death. The gods are pleased through sacrifices, the sages through study and austerities, men through kindness. "The ancestors," Pandu said, "through sons and shraddhas (funeral offerings)." He had discharged his debts to rishis, gods, and men. But the debt to his ancestors remained unpaid, and it tormented him. "It is certain that when my body perishes, so will the ancestors." A son was not merely a desire; it was a cosmic obligation. "The best of men are born so as to give birth to offspring. I was begotten by the great-souled one in my father’s field. Like that, should I have offspring in my father’s field?" The ascetics listened. Then, using their divine sight, they gave him an answer that changed everything. "O king! O one who is devoted to dharma! We know that there are offspring for you, learned, beautiful, unblemished, and like the gods themselves. We have seen this through our divine sight." They urged him not to seek an impossible physical ascent, but to fulfill the destiny the gods had already written. "O tiger among men! Through your acts, accomplish what the gods have destined for you. The thinking and intelligent man always obtains fruit that are not spoilt. O son! The fruit can be seen. Exert yourself. When you have obtained offspring with all the qualities, you will find happiness." Pandu heard them. And he remembered the curse that had made his own body barren.