Adhyāya I, Kaṇḍikā 13

1^[1]. The Upaniṣad (treats of) the Garbhalambhana, the Puṃsavana, and the Anavalobhana (i.e. the ceremonies for securing the conception of a child, the male gender of the child, and for preventing disturbances which could endanger the embryo).

2^[2]. If he does not study (that Upaniṣad), he should in the third month of her pregnancy, under (the Nakṣatra) Tiṣya, give to eat (to the wife), after she has fasted, in curds from a cow which has a calf of the same colour (with herself), two beans and one barley grain for each handful of curds.

3. To his question, 'What dost thou drink? What dost thou drink?' she should thrice reply, 'Generation of a male child! Generation of a male child!'

4. Thus three handfuls (of curds).

5^[3]. He then inserts into her right nostril, in the shadow of a round apartment, (the sap of) an herb which is not faded,

6^[4]. According to some (teachers) with the Prajāvat and Jīvaputra hymns.

7. Having sacrificed of a mess of cooked food sacred to Prajāpati, he should touch the place of her heart with the (verse,) 'What is hidden, O thou whose hair is well parted, in thy heart, in Prajāpati, that I know; such is my belief. May I not fall into distress that comes from sons.'

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

13, 1. Nārāyaṇa evidently did not know the Upaniṣad here referred to; he states that it belongs to another Śākhā. Comp. Professor Max Müller's note on Bṛhad Āraṇyaka VI, 4, 24 (S.B.E., vol. xv, p. 222).

[2]:

'He should give her the two beans as a symbol of the testicles, and the barley grain as a symbol of the penis.' Nārāyaṇa.

[3]:

Nārāyaṇa (comp. also the Prayogaratna, folio 40; Āśvalāyanīya-Gṛhya-Pariśiṣṭa I, 25; NIS. Chambers 667) separates this rite from the ceremony described in Sūtras 2-4. He says that Sūtras 2-4—as indeed is evidently the case—refer to the Puṃsavana, and in Sūtra 5 begins the Anavalobhana (comp. garbharakṣaṇa, Sāṅkh. I, 21). To me it seems more probable that the text describes one continuous ceremony. There is no difficulty in supposing that of the Anavalobhana, though it is mentioned in Sūtra 1, no description is given in the following Sūtras, the same being the case undoubtedly with regard to the Garbhalambhana, of which a description is found in the Āśv.-Pariśiṣṭa I, 25.

[4]:

Two texts commencing ā te garbho yonim etu and Agnir etu prathamaḥ. See Stenzler's Various Readings, p. 48, and the Bibliotheca Indica edition, p. 61.