Securing a Child’s Place in the World: Extended Vātsalya in Indian Knowledge Systems

English

Abstract

This paper develops extended vātsalya as a framework for examining how parental and parent-like care shapes a child’s place in familial, educational, institutional, and political life. Through qualitative close reading and controlled comparison, it analyses six relationships from the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the Mahābhārata, and the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa: Jabālā-Satyakāma, Adhiratha-Rādhā-Karṇa, Drupada and his queen-Śikhaṇḍin, Śakuntalā-Kaṇva-Bharata, Kaikeyī-Bharata, and Vāli-Aṅgada.

The study proposes a six-part typology of intervention: truthful preparation, secure family incorporation, protected role formation, representative advocacy, succession planning, and transitional guardianship. It argues that such intervention supports responsible social formation when it rests on truth, responds to age and need, serves the child’s well-being, and leaves room for consent and agency. It becomes ethically unstable when concealment, parental ambition, or unilateral planning exposes the child to risk or conflicts with the child’s considered judgment. By distinguishing social placement from social formation, the paper shows how parental influence shapes later experience and conduct without eliminating personal responsibility, explained through the svabhāva-saṃskāra-svānubhava framework and kartṛ-bhāva.