I, 15

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

KANDIKÂ 15.

1. Now the Sîmantonnayana (or parting of the pregnant wife's hair).

2 ². (it is performed) like the Pumsavana;

3. In her first pregnancy, in the sixth or eighth month.

4 ^15_4. After he has cooked a mess of sacrificial food, containing sesamum and Mudga beans, and has sacrificed to Pragâpati, he parts for the wife, who is seated to the west of the fire on a soft chair, her hair upwards (i.e. beginning from the front) with a bunch containing an even number of unripe Udumbara

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fruits, and with three bunches of Darbha grass, with a porcupine's quill that has three white spots, with a stick of Vîratara wood, and with a full spindle. with the words, 'Bhûr bhuvah svah.'

5. Or (he parts the hair once) with each of the (three) Mahâvyâhritis.

6 ⁶. He ties (the Udumbara fruits, &c.) to a string of three twisted threads with (the words), 'Rich in sap is this tree; like the tree, rich in sap, be thou fruitful.'

7 ⁷. (The husband) then says to two lute-players, 'Sing ye the king, or if anybody else is still more valiant.'

8 ⁸. Here some also prescribe a certain stanza (to be sung by the lute-players): 'Soma alone is our king. May these human tribes dwell on thy banks, O (river) whose dominion is unbroken, N.N.!'—here he names the name of the river near which they dwell.

9. Then (follows) feeding of the Brâhmanas.

Footnotes

292:2 15, 2. I.e. the Nakshatra under which the ceremony is performed, should be of male gender; the wife is to fast, &c. (see chap. 14, 3).

292:15_4 Sâṅkhâyana-Grihya I, 22, 8; Âsvalâyana I, 14, 4.

293:6 Sâṅkhâyana I, 22, 10.

293:7 Sâṅkhâyana l.l. §§ 11, 12; Âsvalâyana l.l. § 6.

293:8 Âsvalâyana l.l. § 7. I take avimuktakakre to be the vocative of the feminine.