One of the religious vows of this nature is to observe fasts on twelve consecutive Sundays or Tuesdays. On these days the devotee fixes her gaze on the sun and offers him worship, after which she takes a meal prepared in milk without salt or sugar.[91]
Some hold a recitation of the chandi kavach a hundred times through Brāhmans with sacrificial oblations of clarified butter, sesamum seed, kamod (a kind of rice), gugal (rhododendron), sandal wood and sugarcandy.[92] Others have the story of the Harivansha recited on seventeen consecutive days, during which period the devotee (i.e., the barren woman) observes brahmacharya, that is abstains from sexual enjoyment. This ceremony is believed to exorcise the fiend of barrenness.[92]
Some keep a vow of standing on their legs for the whole day on the fourteenth of the month of Phālgun (the fifth month of the Gujarāt Hindu year) and of breaking their fast after worshipping the sacred pyre.[93]
There is another vow called the Punema or full-moon day vow, the observance of which is believed to favour the birth of a son.[94]
Pouring water at the root of, or circumambulating, a pipal or bābul tree after a bath without removing the wet clothes, is also believed to cause conception.[95]
Some observe the vow of entertaining thirteen Brāhmans and thirteen virgins to a feast, and of setting up Randal Bantva.[96]
Women whose children die in infancy give them opprobrious names such as Khacharo (filth), Ghelo (stupid), Natho, Uko, Ukardo, Bodho, Pujo, Adāvo, Mongho, Tulhi, Tutho, Kadavi, etc. in the belief that by so doing the life of the children is lengthened.[97] The idea is almost Asiatic in extent. Among Musalmāns also such names are given; and even among the Persians and Arabs boys are given such names as Masriequ and Osaid—the Stolen and the Black. Sometimes parents arrange that their children be actually stolen; and some next of kin, generally the aunt, is made to commit the kindly felony. She afterwards returns the child for a certain amount in cash or clothes. The custom is as old as the scriptures, there being an allusion in the Korān to how the little Joseph was made to steal some garment of his aunt and was claimed as a forfeit by her. Speaking about Levi, the older brothers of Joseph say to the Egyptian soldiers, “If he hath stolen (the king’s goblet) verily the brother of his too did (formerly) steal.”
Some make a vow of not cutting the hair of their children till they are taken to Ambāji, where their hair is cut for the first time.[98]
Some treat their children as beggars until they attain the age of five years, that is, they are dressed till that age in clothes obtained by begging. Some bore the nose of the child.[98]