Birth & naming pujas (जन्म व नामकरण)
The rituals families keep for this occasion, and the order they are usually kept in.
3 pujas cover almost every booking for this occasion. Which ones you keep depends on your family's custom.
- Namkaran नामकरण — the naming ceremony, usually on the eleventh or twelfth day
- Mundan मुंडन — the first tonsure, kept in the child’s first or third year
- Annaprashan अन्नप्राशन — the child’s first solid food, offered with a short puja
What birth & naming asks of a family
The rites of a child's first year are spaced by the calendar rather than by convenience, and each has its own window. Namkaran is kept on the eleventh or twelfth day, or the twenty-first where the family's custom says so; annaprashan in the sixth month for a boy and the fifth or seventh for a girl; mundan in the first or third year, and always an odd-numbered one.
The nakshatra at the time of birth supplies a syllable for the name, which is why the birth time and place are asked for when the naming is booked. The name is said into the child's right ear by the father and then announced to the gathering — the announcement is the rite, not the registration.
Families commonly keep more than one of these on a single day when relatives have travelled. That is ordinary and the pandit will conduct them in order, but they are separate rites with separate sankalps and each still has to fall inside its own window.
