Religious Quest of India

SR No.: 011031
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J N Farquhar, Griswold
Publisher: J N Farquhar Griswold
Total Pages: 365
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

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THE LIFE STORY OF A JAINA
ceremony.
child during life, and the length of time it will live, but no
one is ever able to see, much less decipher, the mystic writing. Ninth On the ninth (or with some sects the eleventh) day after day.
the child's birth the mother is bathed. After the bathing she stands so as to face the sun and shakes from her finger
a drop of kanku (turmeric). Naming When the baby is twelve days old, it is named with
much ceremony. In a silk sāri (the shawl-like overdress of Indian women) are placed some grain, the leaf of a pipaļa tree, a copper coin and a sopāri nut, and then four boys (or, if the child be a girl, four girls) are called, and each seizes a corner of the sāri and begins to rock it. The baby meanwhile is lying in the arms of the father's sister, and as the children rock the sāri and sing
Oli jhoļi pīpaļa pāna
Phaie pāļyum (Rāmji] nāma,' the aunt at the right moment declares the child's name, and of course also gives it a present; for while all the world over the profession of aunt is an expensive one, it is no
where more so than in India. Fifteenth Fifteen days after the child's birth, the mother goes to the
river to fill the water-pots for the house. She takes with her seven different kinds of grain and a cocoa-nut. Arrived at the river, she lights a tiny earthenware saucer containing ghi, splits open the cocoa-nut, and, after arranging the grain in seven rows, she fills a water-pot from the river, and then, picking up one of the seven rows of grain, she puts it in her lap, and as she walks home carrying the filled water-vessel,
she scatters the grain. Hair- The next thing of great importance is the cutting of the cutting.
child's hair. This is done when he or she has attained either the third, fifth, seventh, or ninth month of its first year. (The particular month is not of great importance, provided it be an uneven number. The barber is called, and after the operaticn is over, he is given a special present, and a lucky mark is made on the child's forehead.
day.