Pitri (pitṛ)

The pitris are the ancestors, who depend on their descendants for the offerings that sustain them and who therefore have a direct interest in the continuation of a line. The Mahabharata makes this pressure visible: a man without sons sees his forefathers hanging head down over a pit, which is the vision that drives Jaratkaru to marry and produce Astika. The whole crisis of the Kuru succession, and the practice of niyoga that resolves it, is finally about not leaving the ancestors unfed.