Niyoga (niyoga)

Niyoga is the practice by which a widow or the wife of an impotent man bears children by an appointed proxy, usually a brother-in-law or a brahmin, so that a lineage does not fail. It is the mechanism on which the entire Mahabharata rests: with Vichitravirya dead childless, Satyavati summons her son Vyasa to father Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidura on the widowed queens and a maid. The epic treats it as legitimate but joyless, and its results carry the marks of the women's reactions, blindness from closed eyes and pallor from fear.