Pumsavana - The Vedic Sex Selection Ritual

In the Ramayana, Dasharatha's queens, Kausalya, Sumithra and Kaikeyi gave birth to four sons.
In the Mahabharatha, Gandhari, Kunti and Madri, each gave birth to 100, 4 and 2 sons, respectively. Prior to that Ganga and Satyavathi too bore many sons including Bhishma, Vyasa, Chitrangadha and Vichitraveerya.

Again, in the story from the Mahabharatha on the descent of the Ganga, one finds mention of King Sagara's 60,000 sons.

It's a no brainer to identify what's common in the above stories from the Indian epics - the sheer numeracy of the male progeny!

Surprisingly, the female protagonists in these epics are not shown to have 'normal' birth. Sita was 'found' when King Janaka was ploughing a field. Draupadi 'rose' out of the sacrificial fire. Satyavathi's embryo was 'formed' inside a fish. And Shakunthala, born of the union of Vishwamithra and Maneka, was abandoned as an unwanted child.

In other words, the arrival of these females into the world was shown to be either accidental or undesirable.

No prizes for guessing why!!

Kings, priests and merchants needed sons for the continuity of their respective professions.
Ok, so, what's new? We've always known that our society was patriarchal and sons were the preferred progeny.

But did you know that there is an ancient Vedic ritual by the name 'Pumsavana' which is performed to ensure that only a male child was produced inside a woman's womb.

In other words, Pumsavana was a sex selection ritual performed on a pregnant woman to ensure the masculinisation of her foetus. (The Sanskrit word 'Puman' means son.) It was performed around the third month of pregnancy or immediately after the detection of pregnancy, whichever was earlier.

Juice from the buds of a banyan tree was extracted and squeezed into the right nostril of the pregnant women to strengthen her pingala, the solar channel of her body that signifies her masculine energy. A stronger pingala meant a male progeny.

The earliest references to the pumsavana samskara are found in the Atharva Veda dated to around 1200-1000 BCE. A later medical composition, Charaka Samhita, dated to around 200 BCE gives very specific instructions on the ideal day and time, besides other specifications, to perform the pumsavana so as to ensure the masculinisation of the foetus. The Garbhadana ritual or the ritual to impregnate a woman even prescribes specific dates for copulation to ensure a male progeny!

Maybe, this technique is one of the reasons behind the skewed gender ratio in our society (and reflected in our mythology) that continues to date. (Surprisingly, this ritual continues to be performed even today in the Tamil Brahmin community that I come from, but without any knowledge of the purpose of the ritual.)

Interestingly, this whole business of pumsavana raises two questions:

1. A significant increase in males would have resulted in a drastic correction in population over time because men can't bear children. Were the ancient Indians so short-sighted as to oversee this simple fact of life?
2. In a society starved of females, how in heavens name did Narakasura manage to have 16,100 wives?

Answers, anyone?