Essay name: Glories of India (Culture and Civilization)
Author: Prasanna Kumar Acharya
This book, “Glories of India on Indian Culture and Civilization”, emphasizes the importance of recognizing distinct cultural traits across different societies. The historical narrative of Indian civilization highlights advancements in agriculture, medicine, science, and arts, tracing back to ancient times. The author argues for the need to understand the past to meaningfully engage with the present and future.
Page 52 of: Glories of India (Culture and Civilization)
52 (of 510)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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FAMILY LIFE OF SACRAMENTS AND SACRIFICES 23 child. It is also addressed to the sun-god, the goddess of learning and the twin gods Alvin to generate brain in the child and known as medijanana (creating of brain) as in the ceremony of breathing over the child referred to above. And ultimately the prayers specify the following injunction for the physical and in- tellectual perfection of the child. "Be a stone from limb to limb". "Suck long life, suck old age". "Grow with lustre of fire (Agni)". And ultimately the destiny is invoked. "May the deities of day, night, fortnight, month, season, year, old age and death take charge of the child". This brief account of the birth-ceremonies supplies enough materials to enable one to judge for himself the amount of interest the father used to take for the welfare of the child. Everything possible appears to have been done not under any compulsion but readily and will- ingly. It was not due to the mere instinctive love for the child. It was neither due to the economic selfish motive of the primitive father in rearing up a child chicken for the Christmas dinner. Nor is it actuated by the desire of the medieval father to keep alive a son in order to perform the oblations in the absence of which the forefathers suffer. It Was obviously due to conciousness and recognition by a highly cultured mind of the responsibility of the father in bringing to life a future citizen. The sacrifices and pleasure involved in bringing up a good citizen amount to the discharge of the debt which a civilized man readily owns and owes to the society, to the nation and to the state under whose protection he himself has prospered. And such a nobility on the part of the father is adequately repaid in time by the child to whom the father is the only object of adoration.3 1 The hymns include 'Agnir ayushyaṃ
Sa Vanaspatibhir yushyaṃ
tend tv.. yushyā
Ayushmanta. karomi.
Medhini tve devah savit
Medhini devi sarasvati
Medh ni tve a'vinau devau
Âdhatta pushkara srajau.
3 Pit svargal piti dharmah etc. p 18, note 1. Compare "The
teacher
(:ch
rya) 19 ten times more venerable than a sub_
teacher (up dhyy), the father a hundred times more than the
teacher,
but the mother a thousand times more than the father."
(Manu, II, 145).
