History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c23.301

v2.c23.301

*Annaprāśana* :—(making the child eat cooked food for the first time). Vide Āśv. gṛ. I. 16. 1-6 (S. B. E. vol. 29 p. 183), Śāṅ. gṛ. I. 27 (S. B. E. vol. 29 p. 54), Āp. gṛ. 16. 1-2 (S. B. E. vol. 30, p. 283), Pār. gṛ. I. 19 (S. B. E. vol. 29, pp. 299-300), Hir. gṛ. II. 5. 1-3 (S. B. E. vol. 30, p. 216), Kāṭhaka gṛ. 39. 1-2, Bhār. gṛ. I. 27, Mānava gṛ. I. 20. 1-6, Vaik. III. 22. The Gobhila and Khādira gṛ. omit this saṃskāra. Most smṛtis prescribe the 6th month from birth as the time for this saṁskāra; but Mānava gṛ. says it may be the 5th or 6th; while Śaṅkha quoted by Aparārka says it should be performed at the end of a year or at the end of six months, according to some⁵⁸⁷. The Kāṭhaka gṛ. enjoins the sixth month from birth or the time when the child first strikes teeth. The procedure is very brief in all except Śāṅ. and Pār. Śāṅ. says that the father should prepare food of goat's flesh, or flesh of partridge, or of fish or boiled rice, if he is desirous of nourishment, holy lustre, swiftness or splendour respectively and mix one of them with curds, honey and ghee and should give it to the child to eat with the reciting of the Mahāvyāhṛtis (bhūḥ, bhuvaḥ, svaḥ). Then the father is to offer oblations to fire with four verses 'Annapate',⁵⁸⁸ Ṛg. IV. 12. 4-5 and 'him, Oh Agni, lead to long life and splendour &c'. The father recites over the child the verse Ṛg. IX. 66. 19 and then sets down the child on northward pointed kuśa grass with Ṛg. I. 22. 15. The mother is to eat the remnant of the food thus prepared. Āśv. has almost the same rules as to food (omitting fish) but prescribes only one verse 'Annapate'. Āp. gṛ.⁵⁸⁹ prescribes feeding of brāhmaṇas, making them give benedictions to the child and then making the child eat only once amess of curds, honey, ghee and boiled rice mixed together, with the recitation of a mantra joined to the three vyāhṛtis singly and collectively and says that according to some the flesh of partridge may also be added. Bhār. says that the method of making a child eat is the same as in Medhājanana and is silent about the food. Pār. gṛ. (I. 19) prescribes the cooking of sthālīpāka and offering the two ājyabhāgas and then two offerings of ghee with the mantras 'the gods generated⁵⁹⁰ the goddess of speech &c' (Ṛg. VIII. 100. 11) and the verse 'may vigour to-day produce for us gifts &c' (Vāj. S. 18. 33). Mānava, Kāṭhaka and Vaik. are entirely silent about flesh. Kāṭhaka prescribes the cooking of all haviṣya food⁵⁹¹ and the other two works prescribe food cooked in milk.