Jantu

Jantu was the only son of King Somaka. Somaka had a hundred wives, yet for many years he had no children. Jantu was born to him after that long wait.

The Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 127, tells that Jantu was offered in a yajña fire by his father’s purohita (royal priest). Through this rite, a hundred sons were born to Somaka, one from each of his hundred wives. Each son had Jantu’s own birth-mark.

The only son

Jantu was the only child born to King Somaka in spite of his hundred wives. The king was full of grief, because with only one son the line of kings was weak. He spoke to his purohita. The purohita described a rite by which the offered essence of Jantu could bring forth a hundred sons, one from each wife, each with Jantu’s birth-mark.

The offering in the fire

Jantu was offered in the ritual fire. The decision was his father’s, not Jantu’s own. When the hundred wives, who were Jantu’s mothers, heard of it, they rushed to the ground of the yajña. They were overcome with grief and the longing of a mother to reach her child. The sweet-smelling smoke of the rite rose around them. Through this, all the hundred wives became pregnant. In time they bore sons, each with Jantu’s mark on his body.

What followed

The tradition treats this event as a heavy one. The purohita suffered in the afterlife for doing it. Somaka chose to share that suffering rather than go on to svarga (heaven).

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Vana Parva, Chapter 127