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The Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29), by Hermann Oldenberg, [1886], at sacred-texts.com


KANDIKÂ 13.

1. The Upanishad (treats of) the Garbhalambhana, the Pumsavana, and the Anavalobhana (i.e. the ceremonies for securing the conception of a child, the male gender of the child, and for preventing disturbances which could endanger the embryo).

2. If he does not study (that Upanishad), he

p. 180

should in the third month of her pregnancy, under (the Nakshatra) Tishya, give to eat (to the wife), after she has fasted, in curds from a cow which has a calf of the same colour (with herself), two beans and one barley grain for each handful of curds.

3. To his question, 'What dost thou drink? What dost thou drink?' she should thrice reply, 'Generation of a male child! Generation of a male child!'

4. Thus three handfuls (of curds).

5. He then inserts into her right nostril, in the shadow of a round apartment, (the sap of) an herb which is not faded,

6. According to some (teachers) with the Pragâvat and Gîvaputra hymns.

7. Having sacrificed of a mess of cooked food sacred to Pragâpati, he should touch the place of her heart with the (verse,) 'What is hidden, O thou whose hair is well parted, in thy heart, in Pragâpati, that I know; such is my belief. May I not fall into distress that comes from sons.'


Footnotes

179:1 13, 1. Nârâyana evidently did not know the Upanishad here referred to; he states that it belongs to another Sâkhâ. Comp. Professor Max Müller's note on Brihad Âranyaka VI, 4, 24 (S.B.E., vol. xv, p. 222).

179:2 'He should give her the two beans as a symbol of the testicles, and the barley grain as a symbol of the penis.' Nârâyana.

180:5 Nârâyana (comp. also the Prayogaratna, folio 40; Âsvalâyanîya-Grihya-Parisishta I, 25; NIS. Chambers 667) separates this rite from the ceremony described in Sûtras 2-4. He says that Sûtras 2-4—as indeed is evidently the case—refer to the Pumsavana, and in Sûtra 5 begins the Anavalobhana (comp. garbharakshana, Sâṅkh. I, 21). To me it seems more probable that the text describes one continuous ceremony. There is no difficulty in supposing that of the Anavalobhana, though it is mentioned in Sûtra 1, no description is given in the following Sûtras, the same being the case undoubtedly with regard to the Garbhalambhana, of which a description is found in the Âsv.-Parisishta I, 25.

180:6 Two texts commencing â te garbho yonim etu and Agnir etu prathamah. See Stenzler's Various Readings, p. 48, and the Bibliotheca Indica edition, p. 61.


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