| The Grihya Sutras, Part 1 (SBE29) by Hermann Oldenberg [1886] |
...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.