Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c12.s7.2

c12.s7.2

The children were happy adjuncts of the household. The mothers who gave birth to children, fondled and dandled them on the knee, were considered happy The childless mothers (*nindu*) were taken as unlucky, so they yearned for children and propitiated various deities to obtain them We hear of Devai, the wife of Vasudeva, who considered herself unhappy and unrighteous because she could not have a child for a long time.¹² Bhaddā was another woman who prayed to deities, worshipped them and promised to offer wealth to repair their old shrines provided a son or a daughter was born to her.¹³ Mention is made of another woman, Siribhaddā, who used to give birth to still-born children She was told by an astrologer to cook rice-pudding (*pāyasa*) with the blood of a stillborn child and to offer it to a right type of monk (*sutavassī*) so that her children might survive.¹⁴