E. anna, and prāśana feeding.
child: the seventh of the ten essential rites enjoined to the
the three first castes (see saṃskāra); it ought to take place
according to Āsvālāyana, Manu, Yājnavalkya &c. in the
sixth month after a child's birth; according to Kātyāyana
and his school in the sixth (or, according to some, in the
eighth month) if the child is a boy, in the fifth or seventh,
if it is a girl. According to Āsvālāyana a father, if he
desire plenty (for his child?) ought to give it a soup or
sauce made of goat's flesh (‘ājamannādyakāmaḥ’); if he de-
sire holiness, a soup or sauce made of the flesh of a fran-
coline patridge, called tittiri (‘taittiraṃ brahmavarcasakāmaḥ’); if
he desire strength, boiled rice sprinkled over with very
little clarified butter, but not fried in butter, as it would
then not be moist (‘ghṛtaudanaṃ tejaskāmaḥ’) [The restriction
made by the comm. in his explanation of the word ghṛtaudana
is not justified by himself, but countenanced by the gloss of
Patanjali on a Vārttika (‘saṃpratyayācca tadarthādhyavasānam’) to
Pāṇini II. 1. 34]; or if he have no particular desire, boiled
rice mixed with curdled milk, honey and clarified butter
(‘dadhimadhughṛtamiśramannaṃ prāśayet’). [The word anna supplied
at āja and taittira is, as the comm. observes, not to be
taken there in its usual sense ‘boiled rice’ but in that of
soup or sauce, vyañjana.] When giving the food, whatever
be its substance, the father speaks the verse: annapate'nnasya
no dehyanamīvasya śuṣmiṇaḥ &c. (Vājas. Sanh. 11. 83.), if the
child is a boy; if it is a girl, the ceremony is performed
without the recital of the mantra (‘āvṛtaiva kumāryai’).--
According to the school of Kātyāyana the food varies still
more according to the nature of the desires: that cor-
responding with the desire of eloquence is the flesh (pro-
bably the sauce made of the flesh of) a skylark (bharadvājī);
with the desire of plenty, that of a partridge, called ka-
piñjala; with the desire of quickness that of a fish; with
the desire of long life that of the partridge called kṛkaṇā;
with the desire of holiness that of the Śaralī bird (āṭī);
with the desire of all the advantages mentioned before that
of all these animals together; the dish must moreover in
general contain honey, clarified butter and bits of gold
(Reṇuka in his Gṛhyakārikā: ‘madhvājyakanakopetaṃ sarvaṃ tadyuga-
patprabhuḥ . māṃsaṃ tacca bharadvājyā yadīcchedvākprasāritām . kā-
piñjalaṃ cedannādyaṃ mātsyaṃ ca javanaṃ yadi . āyuścetkṛkaṇāyāśca
tadāṭyāścedbrahmavarcasam . sarvaṃ cetsarvamāṃsāni sahānnaṃ prāśayecchu-
bham’); the ceremony is performed while a mantra is in-
audibly muttered and the child is sitting on the lap of its
mother before the divinity of the family; preparatory pro-
cedings are, according to Reṇuka, those connected with
the fixing of an auspicious day, the Ābhyudayika-śrāddha
(the same as the Vṛddhi-Śr.), austerities, as suspending
the breath, meditation on the divinity and oblations (āhutis)
with clarified butter while remembering the divine powers
of speech (vāc), the vital airs prāṇa and apāna, eye
(cakṣus) and ear (śrotra), lastly an oblation of caru (q. v.)
to Agni (agniḥ sviṣṭakṛt).--According to Bhavadeva, as
quoted by Rādhākānta, the order of the procedings is:
fixing of an auspicious day, ablutions, performance of the
Vṛddhi-Śrāddha, collecting of the sacrificial fire, making
a heap of Kuśagrass(?) (acc. to Reṇuka: of fifty leaves of
this grass), then silently throwing into the fire a piece of
fuel smeared with clarified butter, of a span's length, then
the oblation (homa) which is accompanied with the three
sacred words bhūr, bhuvar and svar, then five oblations
(āhutis) with clarified butter, then the homa of the five vital
airs (prāṇa), or instead of the two latter(?) the ceremony
practised in the north which begins with the Śāṭyāyana-
homa and ends with the hymn called Vāmadevya; these
procedings are followed by the essential rite of giving the
food and by, what is essential too, the presents to the of-
ficiating priest. (Comp. also annabhukti.) E. anna and prāśana.
n. (-naṃ) A religious ceremony, in which after presenting obla-
tions to fire, a little rice is, for the first time, put into the child's
mouth; it should take place between the fifth and eighth month.
E.
anna, and prāśana feeding.