Paraskara-grihya-sutra
by Hermann Oldenberg | 1886 | 27,910 words
The Grihya-sutra of Paraskara, which belongs to the White Yajurveda and forms an appendix to Katyayana's Shrauta-sutra, has been edited, with a German translation. Alternative titles: Pāraskara-gṛhya-sūtra (पारस्कर-गृह्य-सूत्र), Grhya, Pāraskaragṛhyasūtra (पारस्करगृह्यसूत्र), Paraskaragrihyasutra, Paraskaragrhyasutra....
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.