34 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



given in the Grihya-Siitras, directs the householder 

 who does not study the Upanishad treating of the rules 

 for securing conception, the male gender of the child, 

 and so forth, to give his wife in the third month of her 

 pregnancy, after she has fasted, in curds from a cow 

 which has a calf of the same colour as the dam, two 

 beans and a barleycorn for each handful of curds. 

 Then he is to ask her: "What dost thou drink?" 

 To which she is to reply : " Generation of a male 

 child." When the curds and the question and response 

 have been thrice repeated, he is to insert into her 

 right nostril the sap of a herb which is not withered. 1 

 One can hardly doubt that this is a ceremony to 

 procure offspring, though according to the rubric not 

 performed until after conception has taken place. 

 Modern Hindu women adopt various means for this 

 purpose. " The most approved plan," says Mr. 

 Crooke, "is to visit a shrine with a reputation for 

 healing this class of malady. There the patient is 

 given a cocoa-nut (which is a magic substance), a fruit 

 or even a barleycorn from the holy of holies." A 

 cocoa-nut in particular " is the symbol of fertility, and 

 all through Upper India is kept in shrines and pre- 

 sented by the priest to women who desire children." 2 

 Every morning at the shrine of Siva an offering of 

 milk, honey and small cakes is made. "A woman 

 who eats these offerings is preserved from sterility"- 

 that is, she is blessed with issue. 3 In Bombay a 

 woman who wishes for a child, especially a son, 



1 Sacred Books, xxix. 180; cf. 395. 



2 Crooke, F. L. N. 2nd. i. 227 ; ii. 106. 



3 Mel) viii. 109. A number of prescriptions of vegetable and 

 animal substances from old pharmaceutical and magical sources have 

 been collected by M. Tuchmann, Id. vii. 159, sqq. 



