Asvalayana-grihya-sutra
by Hermann Oldenberg | 1886 | 27,388 words
Most of the questions referring to the Grihya-sutra of Ashvalayana will be treated of more conveniently in connection with the different subjects which we shall have to discuss in our General Introduction to the Grihya-sutras. Alternative titles: Āśvalāyana-gṛhya-sūtra (आश्वलायन-गृह्य-सूत्र), Ashvalayana, grhya, Āśvalāyanagṛhyasūtra (आश्वलायनगृह्य...
Preface
...Let us beget offspring.
Let us acquire many sons, and may they reach old age.
Loving, bright, with genial minds may we see a hundred autumns,
may we live a hundred autumns, may we hear a hundred autumns!
--p. 282.
This is part one of two of the Sacred Books of the East translation of the Grihya Sutras. The Grihya Sutras are a collection of late Vedic-era (ca. 500 BCE) household rituals and regulations, many reflecting much more ancient traditions. It is like reading a time-travelling ethnographer's field notes in Vedic India. Included are fertility and marriage ceremonies, ritual purity laws, plus material on initiations, funerals and other rites of passage. This volume also includes a complete Sanskrit transliteration of the text of the Khadira-Grihya-Sutra, rare for the SBE series.