For example, the Hindūs have their birth-ceremonies (Jāta-karman), and their name-giving ceremony (Nāma-karaṇa[163]), and the latter is a solemn religious act fraught with momentous consequences in its bearing on a child’s future. Hence Hindū boys are generally called after some god, or the name indicates that the child is the god’s servant. Horoscopes, too, are as important in India as in Buddhist countries[164].
In India, too, all Brāhman boys go through the ceremony of tonsure and cutting off the hair.
Among the Buddhists of Burma a boy is sent to the monastery school at about the age of eight. Before he can become a novice he has to undergo the hair-abscission ceremony, followed by shaving every fort-night (as before described). But those who afterwards elect to lead a secular life wear long hair, to wash which is regarded as a kind of religious ceremonial, and only to be performed about once a month, partly, says Mr. Scott, because the washing of a Burman’s luxuriant hair takes a long time, and partly because too frequent ablutions ‘would disturb and irritate the good genius who dwells in the head and protects the man.’
It is considered unlucky to wash the head on a Monday, Friday, or Saturday; and ‘parents sending their boy to a monastery must remember not to cut his hair off on a Monday, or on a Friday, or on his birth-day.’
It is noticeable that a kind of baptism is practised in Tibet and Mongolia. It is usual to sprinkle children with consecrated water, or even to immerse them entirely on the third or tenth day after birth. This is called Khrus-sol (according to Jäschke).
The priest consecrates the water by reciting some formula, while candles and incense are burning. He then dips the child three times, blesses it, and gives it a name. After performing the ceremony, he draws up the infant’s horoscope.
Then, so soon as the child can walk and talk, a second ceremony takes place, when prayers are said for its happy life, and an amulet or little bag is hung round its neck, filled with spells and charms against evil spirits and diseases.
The use of amulets (Sanskṛit kavaća), charms and spells in Northern Buddhist countries is universal.
At Dārjīling I noticed that among the crowds of persons who frequented the bazaar—many of whom were travellers from Tibet, Nepāl, Bhutān, and Sikkim—almost every one wore an amulet, or a string of amulets round the neck. Most of these amulets are simply ornamental boxes or receptacles for supposed relics of saints, or for little images, or pictures, or for prayer-formularies, worn like breast-plates or phylacteries. They are composed of wood, bone, and not infrequently of beautifully-worked filigree silver, embossed and ornamented with turquoise. The shape is sometimes square, sometimes circular or curved, and brought round to a point[165]. I purchased several specimens, but the vendor of any amulet in actual use invariably removed the contents before consenting to part with it. Here is a specimen of one of exceptionally beautiful design which was given to me by Mr. Sarat Chandra Dās. It was taken from the neck of a woman in the bazaar, but not purchased without much difficulty.
