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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c31.s3: § 3. Birth Ceremonies and others

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c31.s3

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§ 3. Birth Ceremonies and others

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As is natural the domestic ritual devotes much space to the minute description of large number of rites, mainly magical in essence, which accompany the child from even before birth to its death. In the third or fourth month or even later after pregnancy takes place the rite for quickening a male child, Puṁsavana,³ the essence of which consists in the placing in the nostril of the wife by her husband of a Nyagrodha shoot, which he purchases in due form and which is pounded, either by a young girl, or a student or a wife who is keeping a vow, or a Brahmabandhu, a term which is perhaps best taken as a Brahman by birth only, not by learning. A further rite is that to prevent an abortion, or more generally to secure the safety of the embryo, which is accomplished by offering a cooked mess, and rubbing butter on the limbs of the wife.¹ The ceremony of the parting of the hair² is performed once only for the first pregnancy, and is not repeated: it is celebrated in the fourth month or later. The wife sits west of the fire, her husband puts round her neck an Udumbara branch with an even number of unripe fruits, he parts her hair from the front backwards with Darbha grass,³ Vīratara (‘very male’) wood, a full spindle, and a porcupine’s quill; he also makes her look at the mess of rice, sesame, and ghee, and asks her to see in it offspring. Some authorities allow two lute players to sing the king, or him that is higher than the king, that is Soma. One special Gāthā is prescribed which should end with the name of the stream on which the people dwell, and one or two such verses have been preserved to us. Other authorities provide for Brahman women sitting beside her, and uttering phrases indicating that she is to be the mother of living children. Old Brahman women are said also to be the authorities for the acts to be done in these cases. The wife should keep silence after the rite until the stars appear, when she should touch a calf, say the Vyāhṛtis, Bhūḥ, Bhuvaḥ, Svar, and then speak. There are also ceremonies for the actual birth: the place is anointed against the Rakṣases: a Brahman loosens all the knots in the house, as in Germany all doors and locks are opened; water and the Tūryantī plant are placed before the mother.⁴ If the child dies in birth, special rites are ordered. When the child is born alive, a fire⁵ is lit in the house to warm utensils and be used for the smoking of the child,⁶ which is performed by throwing into the fire grains of corn and hemp, with formulae to drive away demons of various kinds. For ten days the offering of sesame and rice grains is prescribed. On the twelfth day the special fire disappears, the old household fire comes out into use, the purification of the wife and child having been performed.

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³ GGS. ii. 6; ÇGS. i. 20; HGS. ii. 2; MGS. i. 16; BGS. i. 9; BhGS. i. 22; JGS. i. 5; AV. iii. 23; vi. 11; vii. 17, 19. Magic rites for love purposes are rare outside Atharvan texts, e. g. RV. x. 145, 159, 162, 183; TS. ii. 3. 9. 1; MS. ii. 3. 2; TB. ii. 3. 10; BAU. vi. 4; ApGS. ix. 4; xxiii. 3; see Bloomfield, *Atharvaveda*, pp. 69 ff.

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¹ ÇGS. i. 21; HGS. ii. 2. 7. Cf. also Kauç. xxxiv. 3–11.

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² GGS. ii. 7; ÇGS. i. 22; PGS. i. 15. 3; ApGS. xiv; HGS. ii. 2; MGS. i. 15; cf. Kauç. xxxv. 20 with Keçava’s comment; BhGS. i. 21; BGS. i. 10; JGS. i. 7.

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³ For the later practice of putting on a red mark, to frighten demons, see Hopkins, *Origin of Religion*, p. 119, and cf. VārGS. xvi.

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⁴ ApGS. xiv. 14; HGS. ii. 2. 8; Henry, *La magie dans l’Inde antique*, p. 143.

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⁵ ÇGS. i. 25. 4; PGS. i. 16. 23; JGS. i. 8.

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⁶ The Greek ritual substitutes an Amphidromia in which the child is carried swiftly round the fire to acquire strength and speed. The fire here too purifies.

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Immediately on birth are performed the ceremonies for securing long life, the Āyuṣya, and the production of intellect, Medhājanana: in the case of girls these ceremonies may be performed, but then without the accompanying formulae. The father breathes thrice upon the new-born child, and gives it to eat a mixture of butter, honey, and sour milk, to which others add rice and barley, and even whitish black and red hairs of a black bull. The child is fed with a golden instrument. In some authorities five Brahmans are expected to invoke its possession of the breaths of life, or the father makes up for this by going about the child in the several quarters. The child is asked to become a stone and an axe, and in some cases these instruments are actually present at the rite. At this point the smoking of the child may take place. Intellect is given by repeating a prayer in the ear of the babe, asking Savitṛ or Mitra and Varuṇa to give it intelligence: with the fourth gold-covered finger butter and honey are given to the infant to eat. Thereafter the navel string is cut, and the child is washed and given the breast. After that a water jug is placed on the head of the mother, and she is commended to the protection of the water.¹

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¹ GGS. ii. 7; AGS. i. 15; ÇGS. i. 24; PGS. i. 16; ApGS. xv; MGS. i. 17; HGS. ii. 3; BGS. ii. 1; BhGS. i. 24–6.

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The child has two names,² one secret for the knowledge of father and mother alone, and apparently given immediately on birth at the life-giving ceremony. This name from its close connexion with the life of the child is not allowed to be known in order to prevent injury through the use of the name by enemies. The second normal name is given on the tenth day in agreement with the Brahmans, or on the twelfth or even a year later. It should be of an even number of syllables, different merits being connected with the diverse numbers, begin with a soft letter, contain a semi-vowel, and end in *s* or a long vowel; for a Brahman it should be a compound³ in *çarman*, 'protection', for a Kṣatriya in *varman*, 'armour', and for a Vaiçya in *gupta*, 'protected'. A girl's name should have an uneven number of syllables. The giving of the name is accompanied by offerings to Prajāpati, the day of birth, the Nakṣatra of that day, and the god of the Nakṣatra. Another name is the Nakṣatra name derived from a lunar mansion such as Rauhiṇa: the notices regarding it are confused with that of the name by which the boy is to designate himself when he becomes a student and announces his name in greeting others, and one or both of these names seem to be made out to be the secret name. A Soma sacrificer may have yet another name in due course. Birthday offerings to Agni, Indra, heaven and earth, the All-gods, the day and constellation of birth, and the deities of both, are prescribed every year.

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² GGS. ii. 7. 15 ff.; AGS. i. 15. 4 ff.; ÇGS. i. 25; PGS. i. 17; ApGS. xv. 8; MGS. i. 18; HGS. ii. 4; Weber, *Naxatra*, ii. 317 ff.; BGS. ii. 1; BhGS. i. 26; JGS. i. 9.

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³ This is the normal Indo-European mode of name formation; cf. Feist, *Kultur der Indogermanen*, pp. 302 ff.

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On the tenth or twelfth day after birth the father and mother and the child are washed, the house purified, and offerings made to the day of birth and three constellations, to Agni and Soma. The special fire is now extinguished, and the old household fire resumes its functions. The child is now named and enters thus into the full life of every day, just as in the Salic law, at the end of nine days,⁴ it received its name and became a subject of wergeld.

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⁴ The variation in India from 9, which is a common number in these cases, is probably due as regards 10 (ÇGS. i. 25. 1; GDS. xiv. 16; VDS. iv. 21) to inclusive reckoning and the fondness for a unit like 10, and in the case of 12 to the frequent use of that number (= that of the months) in the ritual as a period of time.

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On the third day of the third month the moon is revered by the father, and the mother is newly washed, the child being first handed by the mother to the father and then given back to her by him. In the fourth month the first going out takes place, when the child is made to look at the sun. In the sixth month the first solid food is given: its kind is dependent on what qualities are desired, quickness is due to fish eating, holy brilliance to the partridge, glory to rice and butter, oratory to Bhāradvājī flesh, and so on.¹ By one Sūtra an offering to speech and strength is prescribed.

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¹ AGS. i. 16; ÇGS. i. 27; PGS. i. 19. 2; MGS. i. 20; BGS. ii. 3; BhGS. i. 27.

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The ceremony of the tonsure² is usually performed in the third year, or the fifth and seventh for a Kṣatriya and a Vaiçya respectively: the essence of the ceremony is the formal wetting of the child’s hair, the putting of bunches of Darbha on it, the cutting of the right and then the back and then the left side with a razor, which is not to injure the child, and which is addressed as an axe. The hair with the Darbha is thrown away in the cow-stall, near water, or in a pool of water or elsewhere. For three days after, the barber, it seems, must not use the razor: as often, in the case of girls the formulae used for boys are omitted. The hair is then arranged in the peculiar mode of the family, or in a number of tufts according to the number of seers hailed as belonging to the family tree in the Pravara ceremony. The barber receives as his fee rice and butter, or another gift: the family teacher a cow. In the sixteenth year, or the 22nd and 24th for the Kṣatriya and Vaiçya, follows the shaving of the beard based on the same model, but the cutting is extended to hair, beard, hair of the body, and nails. The fee to the priest is a pair of cattle, to the barber a goat. The shorn youth should for a year, or at least three days, observe chastity, and not cut his hair again.³ The piercing of the ears in the third or fourth year is a rite which is only recorded in one late text.⁴

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² GGS. ii. 9; AGS. i. 17; ÇGS. i. 28; PGS. ii. 1; ApGS. xvi; BGS. ii. 4; BhGS. i. 28; HGS. ii. 6; MGS. i. 21. The AV. (vi. 21, 136, 137) has spells to make hair grow.

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³ GGS. iii. 1, 2; AGS. i. 18; ÇGS. i. 28. 19.

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⁴ Speijer, *Jātakarman*, p. 21.

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