PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 61 



a hen's first egg is used. On the other hand, in 

 Galicia the last egg laid by a hen is taken. It is 

 credited with having two yolks, and with being no 

 bigger than a pigeon's egg. A barren woman who 

 swallows its contents will henceforth bear ; or it is 

 given to a cow or other animal with a similar object. 1 



At the domestic sacrifices offered by the ancient 

 Aryans of India the celebrant's wife usually assisted. 

 Among those rites for which the Grihya-Sutra of 

 Gobhila gives minute directions is the Anvashtakya 

 rite, the object of which was the propitiation of the 

 ancestral spirits. Three Pindas, or lumps of food, con- 

 sisting of rice and cow-beef mixed with a certain juice, 

 are offered. After the offering, if the sacrificer's wife 

 wish for a son, she is to eat the middle Pinda, 

 dedicated among the manes especially to her husband's 

 grandfather, uttering at the same time the verse from 

 the Mantra-Brdhmana : "Give fruit to the womb, 

 O Fathers ! " 2 No doubt the virtue of this prescrip- 



1 Am Urquell, iv. 125. 



2 Sacred Books, xxx. no. There are numerous prescriptions in the 

 sacred books of India for securing male children. One other may 

 be selected here. A fire is directed to be churned with thejicus 

 religiosa and the mimosa suma while a hymn from the Atharva-veda 

 expressive of the symbolism of the act is recited. Fire thus obtained 

 is thrown into ghee prepared from the milk of a cow with a male 

 calf; and the ghee is put with the thumb up the right nostril of the 

 pregnant woman. Some of the fire is cast into a stirred drink with 

 honey and the drink is given to the woman. Finally the fire is 

 surrounded with the wool of a male animal and the wool is then 

 tied as an amulet upon the woman (Sacred Books, xlii. 460, 97). 

 Here the woman is already pregnant and the rites (the symbolism 

 of which is obvious) are only employed to influence the sex. But 

 they are on similar lines to those intended to procure offspring. It 

 should be noted that the reading here is uncertain. Mr. Bloomfield 

 adopts male (animal) as yielding a better symbolism than black > the 

 alternative reading. 



