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Garbhadhana

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Garbhadhana

Part of a series on
Hinduism

Garbhadhana (Sanskrit: गर्भाधान, Garbhādhāna) (literally: placing the seed in the womb) is the first of the 16 saṃskāras (sacraments) practiced by the Hindus.[1]

Ceremony

According to the Grhya Sutras, at the beginning of the performance of this saṃskāra, the wife was decently decorated and the husband recited Vedic verses consisting similes of natural creation and invocations to gods for helping his wife in conception. Then embracing began with verses consisting metaphors of joint actions of male and female forces and the husband rubbed his own body with verses expressing his fertilizing capacity. After embracing, conception proper took place with prayers to Pushan. The husband then touched the chest of his wife, reclining over her right shoulder with the verse, "O, you, whose hair is well parted. Your heart which lives in heaven, in the moon, that I know, may it know me. May we see a hundred autumns."[2]

Notes

  1. ^ Pandey, R.B. (1962, reprint 2003). The Hindu Sacraments (Saṁskāra) in S. Radhakrishnan (ed.) The Cultural Heritage of India, Vol.II, Kolkata:The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, ISBN 81-85843-03-1, p.392
  2. ^ Pandey, Rajbali (1969, reprint 2006) Hindu Saṁskāras: Socio-Religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments, Delhi:Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN ISBN 81-208-0434-1, pp.48-59

External links

  • Garbhadhana Samskara
16 Hindu Saṃskāras (rites of passage)
Pre-natal
Childhood
Educational
Marriage
Last
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