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How To Perform Simantonnayana Sanskar? – Simantonnayana Sanskar Vidhi

Simantonnayana Sanskar Vidhi is the detail description on how to perform Simantonnayana Sanskar as per traditional Hindu scriptures.

Simanta means ‘parting or turning of hair’ and unnayana is taking up or raising. Simantonnayana thus means combing the hair from the front upward and backward. In itself this act has come to assume significance as one of the 16 samskaras.

It is described in Asvalayana Smriti that that husband should perform simantonnayana sanskar on his wife when she is pregnant for the first time, for protecting her and the fetus from harmful elements.

Simantonnayana is also described in Baudhayana  Grihya Sutra (I.10.1). It states that is should be done in the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy. In Yajnavalkya Smriti (1.11), the sixth or eighth month of pregnancy is said to be suitable. Dharmashastras have recommended it in each pregnancy, not in the first alone.

How To Perform Simantonnayana Sanskar?

The pregnant woman observes a fast on that day. The rituals of punyahavacana, matrka pujana and nandi shraddha are completed on the day by priests. The sacred fire is it. The husband sits on an ox’s skin with his wife on the left side.

Eight ahutis (oblations) are offered to the fire.

Mantras are recited for combating harmful elements and driving them away.

Then, with a burning inflorescence of the rice plant with half-mature grains and three sprouts of kusha darbha (grass), the husband raises the hair of his wife, invoking mantras to ward off fear from demons. This is done four times.

A twig of audumbara (fig) tree is tied to the necklace of the wife.