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Abstract
Continuing further on the path laid out by Michael Allen's pioneering work on rituals that centre on Newar Buddhist girl children in Nepal, this study analyses liturgies pertaining to a religious practice called ‘bārhā pikāyagu’ that ends a period of seclusion undergone by Newar girls before menarche. The article looks at three ritual manuals currently used by Buddhist priests in Lalitpur, Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, respectively. In its aim to supply a textual background to Allen's ethnography of this ritual, the study tries to place these manuals at the conjunction of other ritual textual genres, such as prescriptions for domestic rituals for women that include cosmological, demonological and pregnancy-related aspects, and attempts to explore their composition, their intention and their place within the larger ritual literature of Buddhism among the Newars.
Notes
1 Michael Allen, ‘Girls’ Pre-Puberty Rites among the Newars of Kathmandu Valley’, in Michael Allen and S.N. Mukherjee (eds), Women in India and Nepal (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982), pp. 179–210. The most recent revised version of this article can be found as Chapter 6 in Michael Allen, The Cult of Kumari. Virgin Worship in Nepal (Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, 3rd rev. and enl. ed., 1996), pp. 100–32.
2 My decision in favour of using ‘Newar’ (New.) to designate the language spoken and written by the Newars follows the proposal of two relatively recent monographs on Newar linguistics. See Austin Hale and Kedār P. Shrestha, Newār (Nepal Bhāsā) (München: Lincom Europa, 2006); and Carol Genetti, A Grammar of Dolakha Newar (Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007). They distance themselves from the indigenous ‘Nepāl Bhāṣā’ and ‘Nevāḥ Bhāy’, the more academic ‘Newari’ (viz. ‘Newārī’) or the Indological ‘Nevārī’. The difference that Niels Gutschow and Axel Michaels draw in Growing Up. Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008), between written ‘Nevārī’ and spoken ‘Nevāḥ’, is, in my eyes, artificial and is backed neither by indigenous Newar discourse nor academic linguistic evidence (p. 3).
3 In this article, Newar words are transliterated following the conventions laid out by the two standard dictionaries, Kamal P. Malla et al. (eds), A Dictionary of Classical Newari Compiled from Manuscript Sources (Kathmandu: Nepal Bhasa Dictionary Committee, 2000), p. 326: and Ulrike Kölver and Iswarananda Shresthacarya, with the assistance of Daya Ratna Sakya and Nirmal Man Tuladhar, A Dictionary of Contemporary Newari, Newari–English (Bonn: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1994). Hence, the text has -ṃ- to represent nasals where others may use superscribed ∼ and features -m̆̇- to orthographically distinguish the short from the long nasal sound. Generally, -va- / -vā- is used instead of -o- and -ya- / -yā- instead of -e-. In quotes, however, the transliteration follows the orthography of the original. I have chosen to retain the sometimes highly idiosyncratic, often simply miswritten original form in order not to formally complicate the representation of the texts, which in most cases would have required intensive annotation. Where the spelling is so deviant as to obscure the meaning, emendations are proposed.
4 Catherine Bell, ‘Ritualization of Texts and Textualization of Ritual in the Codification of Taoist Liturgy’, in History of Religions, Vol. 27, no. 4 (1998), p. 390.
5 Asha Kaji and Pandit Vaidya (Ganesh Raj Vajracharya) (trans. N.B. Bajracharya, ed. Michael Allen), The Daśakarma Vidhi. Fundamental Knowledge on Traditional Customs of Ten Rites of Passage amongst the Buddhist Newars (Kathmandu: Mandala Book Point, 2010), pp. 117–21.
6 Gérard Toffin, Société et religion chez les Néwar du Népal (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984), pp. 140–1.
7 Robert I. Levy, with the collaboration of Kedar Rāj Rājopādhyāya, Mesocosm. Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 670–3.
8 Niels Gutschow and Axel Michaels, with a film on DVD by Christian Bau, Growing Up. Hindu and Buddhist Initiation Rituals among Newar Children in Bhaktapur, Nepal (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2008), pp. 173–87.
9 The one earlier study by Gopal Singh Nepali, The Newars. An Ethno-Sociological Study of a Himalayan Community (Bombay: United Asia Publications, 1965), pp. 112–6, does not give more than a sketchy picture of what happens, or is supposed to happen, in bārhā and remains silent about the provenance and localisation of the data presented.
10 Gutschow and Michaels, Growing Up, pp. 173–87.
11 Among the Nepalese academic studies on bārhā are Jñānī Maiyā Maharjan, Nevāḥ samājay bārhā saṃskāra (Yala [Lalitpur]: Nhū hisu pucaḥ, NS 1128, VS 2064 [2007]); and Shradha Chipalu, Barha Ritual (Lalitpur: Nnhoo hisu pucha, 2007). The journal of the national association of the Buddhist Śākya caste had a special issue dedicated to bārhā, Śākya 9,2. Ṛtupau (mukhpatra) (NS 1127, VS 2064 [May 2007]).
12 This is an inadequately brief overview of the multitude of voices I recorded on the most diverse occasions between 2004 and today, talking about or just briefly referring to bārhā, and mostly reflect first reactions at the beginning of more detailed conversations on the topic. The majority, but by no means all the speakers whose comments I have here very roughly paraphrased, hail from upper-caste, middle- to lower-middle-class Hindu and Buddhist Newar families in Lalitpur, Kathmandu and Bhaktapur, including the highly socially mobile urban farmer communities.
13 There is no space here to elaborate upon the other prominent narrative which is presented in conversations, usually with Newar men, about bārhā: that of bārhā as a dangerous practice that may lead to the death of the girl child, her subsequent transformation into a ghost called the bārhā si, and the appropriate rituals to prevent such an occurrence. I have analysed the role of gender, demonology, and rumour in contemporary forms of male discourse on bārhā in my monograph Buddhist Rituals for Newar Girls. Mimesis and Memory in the Kathmandu Valley (Leiden: E. J. Brill, forthcoming).
14 Kölver and Shresthacarya, A Dictionary of Contemporary Newari, p. 234. Thakur Lal Manandhar and Anne Vergati, Newari–English Dictionary. Modern Language of Kathmandu Valley (Delhi: Agam Kalam Prakashan, 1986), also give the variants, bārāy and bārhāe (p. 175).
15 I do not see any backing for the translation of bārhā as ‘cave’ that Gutschow and Michaels propose (Gutschow and Michaels, Growing Up, p. 174), except if one wished to somehow transfer the Nepali word guphā (‘cave’) used in the term for the Indo-Parbatiyā menstruation ritual, guphā rakhne (‘placing into a cave’), onto the Newari bārhā tayagu.
16 Kamal P. Malla et al. (eds), A Dictionary of Classical Newari Compiled from Manuscript Sources (Kathmandu: Nepal Bhasa Dictionary Committee, 2000), p. 326.
17 Manandhar and Vergati, Newari–English Dictionary, p. 174.
18 Otto Böhtlingk and Rudolph Roth (eds), Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, rpr. 1990), p. 696.
19 Ralph Lilley Turner (ed.), A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 436.
20 Manandhar and Vergati, Newari–English Dictionary, p. 175.
21 Kölver and Shresthacarya, A Dictionary of Contemporary Newari, p. 234; and Manandhar and Vergati, Newari–English Dictionary, p. 175.
22 Lienhard points at the parallel term, macābu byaṃkegu, translated as ‘release from (the pollution caused by) the birth of a child’ (‘von der Unreinheit der Geburt eines Kindes befreien’). See Siegfried Lienhard, ‘Dreimal Unreinheit: Riten und Gebräuche der Nevars bei Geburt, Menstruation und Tod’, in Bernhard Kölver and Siegfried Lienhard (eds), Formen kulturellen Wandels und andere Beiträge zur Erforschung des Himālaya (Sankt Augustin: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag, 1986), p. 13.
23 V.S. Apte, The Practical Sanskrit–English Dictionary (Poona: Prasad Prakashan, rev. and enlarged ed. 1957), p. 1161.
24 Böhtlingk and Roth (eds), Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, p. 69. Cp. Nep. bādhā, ‘Restraint, obstruction, opposition’ also derived from Skt. Bādhā. See Turner (ed.), A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language, p. 433.
25 Turner (ed.), A Comparative and Etymological Dictionary of the Nepali Language, p. 435.
26 ‘(ein Mädchen) in die zwölf Tage (dauernde Pubertätsquarantäne) setzen’. See Lienhard, ‘Dreimal Unreinheit’, p. 12), supported by Kashinath Tamot, personal communication, 2006. Against vādhā > bārhā, Lienhard notes here that Skt. d can become New. r or ṛ, not dh or rh. However, the occurrence of the variant vālhā for vādhā in manuals, reflecting an affinity found often in Newar between -l- and -r-, would give reason to assume a development along the lines of bādhā > vādhā/vālhā > bārhā.
27 Badriratna Vajrācārya, Vādhā bhyaṃ ke vidhi (Khyo Keba: Moti Vajrācārya, NS cillāgā aṣṭamī 1099 [1979]); rpr. Āśāmāyā Tulādhar in NS 1117) (personal communication, Iain Sinclair, 2012), henceforth VBV-Badri.
28 Buddharatna Vajrācārya, Vādhā byaṃke vidhi, manuscript, handwritten. Nyākhācuka, Lalitpur, late twentieth century. Photocopied lined exercise book pages, black ink. Pp. 3 fols., complete, henceforth VBV-Buddha.
29 Jñānaratna Vajrācārya, Vādhā byeṃkegu, manuscript, Paśubāhāḥ, Bhaktapur. NS 1029 (1908). Thyāsaphū, black ink with red markings. Pp. 20 fols., complete, henceforth VB-Gyana.
30 In contemporary Newar, besides the more popular expressions referring to ritual impurity and the ritual ‘untouchability’ of a woman during her period such as thīmajiu juye, another expression used to denote menstruating is called ‘to drip blood’ (hi kvahāṃ vaye).
31 Walter Slaje, ‘Ṛtú-, ŕtv(i)ya-, ārtavá-. Weibliche “Fertilität” im Denken vedischer Inder’, in Journal of the European Āyurvedic Society, Vol. 4 (1995), p. 126, n. 36.
32 For the gṛhyasūtra literature, see Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediæval Religious and Civil Law in India), Vol. 2, parts 1–2, Government Oriental Series, Class B (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 2nd rev. ed., 1974).
33 Oṃ namaḥ śrī sūryāya namaḥ, VBV-Buddha, f1.
34 Sūryya yāta laḥsiṃkā gāulā pūjā yākā, VBV-Badri, f1; Śrī sūrya darśana yāke, VBV-Buddha, f1; Śrīśurje darasana biya, VB-Gyana, f2.
35 For its occurrence in the gṛhyasūtra literature, see, for e.g., Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. 2.2, pp. 773–4. For Nepal, see Dilli Raman Regmi, Medieval Nepal. A History of the Three Kingdoms 1520 A.D. to 1768 A.D. Vol. II (Delhi: Rupa & Co., [1965] 2007), pp. 216–8; and John K. Locke, Karunamaya. The Cult of Avalokitesvara-Matsyendranath in the Valley of Kathmandu (Kathmandu: Sahayogi Prakashan for the Research Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan University, 1980), p. 75, with a reference to its cleansing (śodhana) power.
36 Oṃ deva grahāya svāhā. oṃ nāga grahāya svāhā. oṃ asūra grahāya svāhā. […] VBV-Badri, 2–3.
37 VBV-Badri, 3 abbreviates to oṃ indrāya svā ityādi. oṃ indrāya svāhā; oṃ yamāya svāhā. oṃ varuṇāya svāhā. …oṃ sūryāya namaḥ svāhā. oṃ divakārāya namaḥ svāhā (VBV-Buddha, 3).
38 Hyāum̆̇gu svāṃ, hyāum̆̇gu jajaṃka, hyāum̆̇gu itātahyāum̆̇gu sinha (VBV-Buddha, 3); Sinha jajaṃkā svāna naivadya marī sissā phala sinha, (VBV-Badri, 3).
39 Gvala 12 kisalī, naivedya, 12 tā madhi, 12 phalaphūla 12 pvā kapū mata biye (VBV-Buddha, 3); Cūrī gvā gve dauvaji sakatāṃ 12 jo chāye (VBV-Badri, 3).
40 Oṃ sūryāya āditya pañcamenāmā dvitīyaṃ ravi ucyate gardbhasti nāmā tṛtīyañca caturtha vinduleva ca pañcama savita [4] nāmā ṣaṭama divākaraṃ dharmmāya saptama nāmā aṣṭame jana tathā nava me bhāskaro vidyāṃ daśame sagrāsakaṃ tṛtīya ca ekādaśe nāmā dvādaśe sūrya devatā māsa nāmānima pada[ṃ?]vimapadhā dvādaśa udbhate mokṣataṃ rakṣamāṃ surya devatā, iti dvādāśa sūrya devatā stotra samāpta (VBV-Buddha, f3–4).
41 Śvabhāgya sarvvagātreṣu. śvarupa prajāyate prabhu. roga śvakābhāgyaśca. duṣa pidā nivāranā. prasādanntuku rumyahi. rakṣmisaṃ sthi tivam dhanaṃ. kuruṣaśvābhedā. vinndupurṇaśuryya nama stute (VB-Gyana, f19).
42 Badriratna has nāga saṃbhava saṃkāśaṃ padya rāga maṇi prabham / saptaśvaratha māruḍhaṃ vajra sūryya namāmyaham // (VBV-Badri, 4), where Buddharatna's text runs śaṃkhanidhānāya svāhā. padmani dhānāya svāhā (VBV-Buddha, 4).
43 The verses in VBV-Badri, 4 agree strongly with verses recorded by Phaṇīndraratna Vajrācārya as nāgasaṃbhavasaṃkāśaṃ padmarāgaṃ maṇiprabham / saptāśvarathasārūḍhaṃ vajrasūrya namāmyaham. See Sarvajñaratna Vajrācārya, Vajrayāna pūjāvidhi saṃgraha. A Collection of Bajrayan Buddhist Worshipping Procedure (thīthī pūjāvidhi munā) (Kāṭhmāṃḍau: Nepāl bauddha saṃskṛti saṃrakṣaṇa kendra, NS 1125 [2005]), p. 4. An almost verbatim listing in Phaṇīndraratna Vajrācārya (muṃha), Vajrayāna pūjāvidhi (Kathmandu: Ratna Pithana (pikāka), NS 1115 [yaṅlāgā 10; VS 2052]), p. 2, was pointed out to me by Iain Sinclair.
44 Buddharatna's version is oṃ namaḥ śrī sūryāya. nāga saṃbhava saṃkāśaṃ padmarāga samaprabhaṃ. saptāśvaratha māruṭaṃ vajrasūryaṃ namāmyāham.
45 Iain Sinclair makes this important observation: ‘This is a praise of the Tantric Buddhist ḍāka Vajrasūrya, who has the same rank and nature as Heruka. This figure belongs to pan-Sanskritic tradition, though I would guess this particular instantiation of the worship of Vajrasūrya is a Newar innovation’. Personal communication, 2012.
46 Oṃ deva dānava kumhāṇḍā kinnara jana sahitāya avatara 2 bhagavana dānapati hitāryāya atra grahamaṇḍala madhye anu[5]praveśāya idaṃ vali gṛṇha 2 hum̆̇ phaṭ svāhā (VBV-Buddha, f4–5).
47 Thanaṃli macā tayeta nhāyakaṃ sinhamū lalhānā jona kā sthāna ināye gaṇeśa yāke pūjā choye (VBV-Badri, 4); Thana gaṇeśa choye (VBV-Buddha, 5); Hnasvasinamu janakā tāna kāla. kunupinta coye (VB-Gyana, 20).
48 The question as to whether particularly demonic or semi-demonic creatures are referred to in the singular or in the plural (are we talking about individuals or groups or categories as grahas?) is an open one and may be resolved by assuming a reference to both category and individual. The reference to beings of this kind seems to oscillate historically between the singular and the plural with a historical tendency for most of them, if they were not plural from the outset, to move from the former to the latter. See E. Haas, ‘Die Heirathsgebräuche der alten Inder, nach den Gṛhyasūtra’, in Indische Studien, Vol. 5 (1862), p. 145, on the case of Gandharva, the gandharva and gandharvas.
49 In its list of grahas, the Mahābhārata's Āraṇyakaparvan features child- and embryo-stealing gandharva- and apsara-grahas (MBh, 3.219.36–37).
50 For an excellent sketch of the grahas, Pūtanā and Sītāpūtana, see Richard D. Mann, The Rise of Mahāsena. The Transformation of Skanda-Kārttikeya in North India from the Kuṣāṇa to Gupta Empires (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2011), p. 27; see also n. 60.
51 The use of grahas in the singular for individuals or in the plural for categories may be inconsistent here. The Mahābhārata's Āraṇyakaparvan knows of skandagrahas (skandagrahāḥ (MBh, 3.219.42)), but the Suśrutasaṃhitā, to which I would assume these manuals have a closer affinity, only know of one Skandagraha. See Mann, The Rise of Mahāsena, pp. 73–5.
52 Their name may be derived from Skt. uṣṭa, ‘lip’. Cp. their appearance in a comparable demonological context in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa: rākṣasostārakapretā vikṛtā mātarāstathā / ghorarūpā mahāvighnā grahāścaiva sudāruṇām //, Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa 31.53. See also Mahāmāyūrīvidyārājñī: ye kecit pṛthivīcarāḥ khacarā jalacarā devā nāgā asurā marutā garuḍā gandharvāḥ kinnarā mahoragā yakṣā rākṣasāḥ pretāḥ piśācā bhūtāḥ kumbhāṇḍāḥ pūtanāḥ kaṭapūtanāḥ skandā unmādāś cchāyā apasmārā ostārakāḥ śṛṇvantu me ojāhārā bhūtagaṇā garbhāhārā rudhirāhārā vasāhārā. Shūyo Takubo (ed.), Ārya-Mahā-Māyūrī Vidyā-Rājñī (Tokyo: Sankibo, 1972), p. 2. Iain Sinclair, personal communication, 2012.
53 In Skandapurāṇa (1:2:30:37–60), Ucchrita features (together with Atiśṛṅga) as a stone-hurling being in the retinue of Skanda gifted to him on his appointment as commander-in-chief.
54 For this list and for the others, cp. lists included in the Sitātapatra-uṣṇīṣa-dhāraṇī (Taishō, 944, 976 and 977) of the Śuraṅgamasūtra. There even this less common and standardised list appears in a version very close to Badriratna's. On these lists of child-threatening demons in Chinese Buddhist literature, see Michel Strickman (ed. Bernhard Faure), Chinese Magical Medicine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 220.
55 See MBh, 3.14387ff.; Suśrutasaṃhitā, 2.385.2 and 394.9.15. Cp also the occurrence of (the) S/skanda(s) in comparable lists of ‘bad beings’ such as in the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa: manuṣyāmanuṣyāśca ye cānye duṣṭasattvacetasā / rākṣasostārakā pretā skandāpasmāraguhyakā //, Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa 36.58( = ‘53’).
56 Mann, The Rise of Mahāsena.
57 For an extensive analysis of this complex and the importance of the Skanda cult for ihi, see my forthcoming monograph.
58 For a detailed study of this ritual complex, see Marianna Kropf, ‘Rituelle Traditionen der Planetengottheiten (Navagraha) im Kathmandutal. Strukturen – Praktiken – Weltbilder’, PhD dissertation, University of Heidelberg, 2005. For its position within Newar Buddhist ritual, see particularly pp. 250–5, and for comments on the role of planetary appeasement rituals specifically in bārhā, see pp. 259–60.
59 Asya ṣajinaṃ bhutaṃ ḥ sarvva dhātuviṣvakaṃ dhamahākārunikā nāthaṃ ḥ dehimya paṃñcagravyakaṃ (VB-Gyana, f7).
60 One should note that the gṛhyasūtras (for example, Parāśarasmṛti, 11.3 and 27) allow for the dispensation of pañcagavya to śūdras and women, but without the employment of verses from the saṃhitās; a manual called the Śūdrālaṅkāra adds the further restriction that these groups can only use them for expiatory rituals (prāyaścitta). See Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. 2, part 2, p. 774.
61 He bālakini naṃdrā dhāyāmha nilavarṇṇadhāyāmha syayāco. bhadrā dhāyamha tuyi mha sāyā ghela. jayādhā yāmha mhāsumha sāyā sautha. saumyā dhāyāmha hyaṃumhāsā yā dhau. kapilā dhāyāmha vāṃmhāsāyā duru.
62 The Parāśarasmṛti, in its treatment of the pañcagavya, lists the cows as expected to be dark, white, copper-red, dark red and brown, with brown (kapilā) being the most auspicious type of cow, from which all the ingredients may also be taken (go mūtraṃ gomayaṃ kṣīraṃ dadhi sarpiḥ kuśa udakaṃ / nirdiṣṭaṃ pañca gavyaṃ tu pavitraṃ pāpa śodhanaṃ // go mūtraṃ kṛṣṇa varṇāyāḥ śvetāyāś caiva gomayaṃ / payaś ca tāmra varṇāyā raktāyā gṛhyate dadhi // kapilāyā ghṛtaṃ grāhyaṃ sarvaṃ kāpilaṃ eva vā /, PS, 11.28–30ab; cp. also the Garuḍapurāṇa, GP 1.222.63–66. Another tradition associates the five substances with Āditya, Vāyu, Soma, Agni and Gandharva, who are invoked during the sthāpana rite. For more details, including a reference to an alternative association of the five substances with Āditya, Vāyu, Soma, Agni and Gandharva, who are invoked during the sthāpana rite, see Kane. History of Dharmaśāstra, Vol. 2, part 2, pp. 773–5.
63 David Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest: Newar Buddhism and Its Hierarchy of Ritual (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 28–30.
64 David Gellner, ‘Monastic Initiation in Newar Buddhism’, in Richard F. Gombrich (ed.), Indian Ritual and Its Exegesis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 42–112; and Alexander von Rospatt, ‘The Transformation of the Monastic Ordination (Pravrajyā) into a Rite of Passage in Newar Buddhism’, in Jörg Gengnagel, Ute Hüsken and Srilata Raman (eds), Words and Deeds: Hindu and Buddhist Rituals in South Asia (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pp. 199–234.
65 Personal communication from Gyanaratna Bajracharya, 2007.
66 For a detailed historical overview of ihi and vādhā manuals, see my aforementioned forthcoming monograph.
67 Marianna Kropf highlights the dominant role given to Sūrya (and, to a lesser degree, Candra) in the Newar Buddhist astrological tradition. Here, he is called the overlord of the grahas (grahādipati), turning the other grahas into an anonymous collective. See Kropf, ‘Rituelle Traditionen der Planetengottheiten (Navagraha) im Kathmandutal’, pp. 251, 255. Buddharatna's text is a good example of this development.
68 Garbhādhāna yāyegu sakṣama jula dhayāgu saṃketa khaḥ. thagu sthitiyāta dhyānay tayā bhiṃgu sāitay lākāḥ barhā taygu jyā jūvai. thukiyāta he rajaśvalā vidhi dhakāḥ naṃ dhayātaḥgu du (Ratnakājī Vajrācārya, Nevāḥ saṃskāra saṃskṛtiyā jātaḥ (Yem̆̇: Vajrācārya prakāśan, 1124 NS dillāthva punhi; 2061 VS sāla asāra 18 gate gurupunhi [2 July 2004]), p. 4.
69 This semantic ambiguity goes back to the translation proposals of the key garbhādhāna verse, ṚV, 9,83,3cd, Māyāvíno mamire asya māyáyā nṛcákṣasaḥ pítaro gárbham ā′ dadhuḥ //, rendered by Geldner as ‘Die Zauberkundigen haben durch seine Zauberkraft die Masse (der Welten) gemacht, die Väter mit dem Herrenauge haben den Keim gelegt’ (ṚV-tr. Ge, III, 76). Here, Geldner gives garbha as ‘the germ’, but it could also be ‘into the womb’ with the accusative of direction (cp. Cornelia Haas, Wie man den Veda lesen kann - Gandharva und die ‘Zwischenzustände’ im Ṛgveda und dem Kommentar des Sāyaṇa. Wege der Interpretation eines archaischen Textes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), p. 41. In the later gṛhyasūtra literature, the meaning of ādhāna seems to be extended to ‘causing, effecting’, but, as the commentarial discussions there show, it remains ambiguous on which side the ‘effecting’ takes place, on that of the mother and her womb or on that of the embryo emerging out of the mother's uterine blood in conjunction with the father's semen.
70 Key studies of these rites in the wider South Asian context are Kamalabai Deshpande, The Child in Ancient India (Poona: Āryasaṃskṛiti Press, 1936); Walter Slaje, ‘Ṛtú-, ŕtv(i)ya-, ārtavá-. Weibliche “Fertilität” im Denken vedischer Inder’, in Journal of the European Āyurvedic Society, Vol. 4 (1995), pp. 107–48; Walter Slaje, ‘Zur Erklärung der sog. “Tobiasnächte” im vedischen Indien’, in Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik, Vol. 21 (1997), pp. 207–34; and Ute Hüsken, ‘Saṃskāras in Theory and Practice’, in Jörg Gengnagel, Ute Hüsken and Srilata Raman (eds), Words and Deeds: Hindu and Buddhist Rituals in South Asia (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pp. 153–97.
71 For the now classic definitions of the term ‘rite of passage’, see Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1960), e.g. pp. 10–3; and Victor Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure (New Brunswick/London: Aldine Transaction, 2009), pp. 94–7.
72 The most comprehensive comparative discussion of these lists in the Newar context, including a highly useful synopsis, can be found in Gellner, Monk, Householder, and Tantric Priest, pp. 198–200.
73 Following Divākar Ācārya referred to by Alexander von Rospatt, ‘The Consecration Ceremony in the Kriyāsaṃgraha and Newar Buddhism’, in Astrid Zotter and Christof Zotter (eds.), Hindu and Buddhist Initiations in India and Nepal (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), p. 252.