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A
Alta—Sheets of cotton impregnated with lac, used for the purpose of painting the feet of women.

Annaprasan—The ceremony of giving a child rice for the first time.

Apaurusheyatya—The character of being self-revealed, i. e. impersonal origin, existing eternally.

Arannyak—That portion of the Vedas which deals with the rites to be observed in the forest after renouncing the world in old age.

Azimabad—An old name for the city of Patna.

B
Bai—A dancing girl.

Basistha—The name of the great Hindu sage, who was the family priest of Sri Ram Chandra, the hero of the great Indian Epic, Ramayana.

Begum—A Nawab's wife.

Bhagirathi—One of the names of the river Ganges.

Bhairaby—The designation of a particular scale in the musical system of the Hindus.

Bhisma—One of the great heroes in the famous Hindu Epic, Mahabharat. He was a celebrated warrior, renowned for his unparalleled self-sacrifice. He took a vow to lead a bachelor life and not to assert his rights of inheritance, to enable his father to marry an exquisitely beautiful girl for whom he had taken a fancy—the father of the bride being unwilling to give her in marriage to the old king unless his son Bhisma would take such a vow.

Birat—A powerful king of Matsya, in Mahabharata.

Biswamitra—A saint, originally a monarch of the military order, who subsequently obtained the dignity of a Brahmin by long and painful austerities.

Brahmasutras—An aphorism