Page:The Heart of Jainism (IA heartofjainism00stevuoft).djvu/222

 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.

On the ninth (or with some sects the eleventh) day after 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 kaṅku (turmeric).

When the baby is twelve days old, it is named with much ceremony. In a silk sārī (the shawl-like overdress of Indian women) are placed some grain, the leaf of a pipaḷa tree, a copper coin and a sopārī nut, and then four boys (or, if the child be a girl, four girls) are called, and each seizes a corner of the sārī and begins to rock it. The baby meanwhile is lying in the arms of the father's sister, and as the children rock the sārī and sing

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 nowhere more so than in India.

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 ghī, 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.

The next thing of great importance is the cutting of the 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 operation is over, he is given a special present, and a lucky mark is made on the child's forehead.