Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t2.5

c4.t2.5

At the conception by the queen, proper rites were performed (laddhagabbhaparihāro).¹ What ceremonies were gone through on this occasion, we are not told. Probably they included the ceremony known as "garbharakṣaṇa" or the protection of embryo in the womb, i.e., the prevention of miscarriage, which consisted mainly in reciting the particular hymns (garbhadharaṇam) of the Atharvaveda²...When, after the expiry of the period of nearly ten months,³ the child was born, there was no limit to peoples' joy and happiness⁴. In this happiness each dropped a kahāpaṇa as the boy's milk-money (khīramūlam).⁵ That very day the happy father would order his chief general to find out how many young nobles had been born that day in the ministers' houses (amaccakule). For, "a retinue must be prepared for my son".⁶ On the name-day (nāmagahaṇadivasa)⁷ the new-born babe was given a name. The Brāhmaṇas who read the different marks of the babe (lakkhaṇapāṭhakānaṃ brāhmaṇānaṃ) were paid great honours. Inquiries were made of them whether there was any danger threatening him (antarāyabhāvaṃ).⁹ From the moment of his birth, the prince was given away in charge of female nurses (dhātī) of the palace who carefully tended and brought him up.⁹ Special care was taken that the nurses were faultless.¹⁰ It was only occasionally that the queen herself would give her milk to the child.¹¹ Generally the child was sucked by the nurses. His childhood then passed away in merriment in company with his mates. They played and enjoyed in and out of the palace. Sometimes they strode off in the park to watch the elephants engaged in fight.¹² Nothing more is learnt about the activities of young princes. Their life at the palace was of course gay and prosperous, and, oftener than not, indolent. There does seem much of reality in the following description of the life of the Princes and Princesses, even allowing some margin for the stress that must be laid on the contrast that the king makes between the palace—and forest-life.