the five places being called pancha sikha. It is said the top-knot itself must be the size of the foot-print of a cow (gopadam); but, as there are cows and cows, this is rather an uncertain measurement. It may be that this is the reason why one sees such various sizes in the Sikhas; some being comparatively very small, whilst others are sufficiently large to cover a great part of the head, and, when untied, to flow down in a sweeping tail to below the waist.

This may be a suitable place to mention, for the information of those not acquainted with India, that the top-knot is usually twisted up and tied in a knot or coil, and is carefully stowed away under the turban, or cap when the head is covered. It is amusing to see the dexterity with which a Hindu will twist up his hair and knot it up, when it may have become disarranged; and one may sometimes see an old gentleman carefully stroking out the few grey hairs age has left him in his beloved sikha, and watch him tie it into a tiny knot close up to his bald scalp.

The whole of this shaving ceremony is so interesting that it may be well to give it somewhat in detail. Each family priest has a kind of rubric telling him exactly what to do on such occasions. These rubrics were originally drawn up by Rishis or Sages, and their directions are strictly carried out. The shaving rite is administered just before the young man is invested with the sacred thread. The priest acts for the father who may be ignorant of the mantrams and ritual. The theory seems to be that the father administers these rites in the god's stead, and the priest acts for the father. The priest goes through the ceremony, the father following him, where he is able to repeat the words at all. As a kind of introductory sentence to the shaving rite the following sentence is repeated:

येनावपदिति चतसृभिः ।

प्रतिमंत्रं प्रतिदिशं ।

प्रदक्षिणं प्रवपति ||

The meaning of this is very difficult to make out, but it may be taken to mean some thing as follows:

He (Jagatjanakaha-the progenitor of the world) shaves, repeating the four mantrams commencing with the one that begins with the words yēna vapat-uttering one at each of the four cardinal points, and making circumambulation (pradakshinam).

The priest then instructs the father of the youth who is being invested, to take stalks of the sacred grass (darbha) and put one on each of the four sides. of the youth's head, indicating the four cardinal points of the compass, and cut each stalk with a razor, thus showing the barber where to leave the four patches in shaving the head. The priest also directs the youth to turn to the four cardinal points, commencing from the east, and at each he repeats the following mantram :

येनावपत्सविता क्षुरेण सोमस्य राज्ञो वरुणस्य विद्वान् ।
तेन ब्रहमाणोवपतेदमस्यायुष्मान् जरदष्टिर्यथासत् ॥

The all wise progenitor of all things, with what razor he shaved the Moon and Varuna with the same he shaved Brahma. He also shaves the head of this youth. May he have long life and may his ignorance perish.

The whole of this ritual seems to be elaborated from this mantram. It is explained that Jagatjanakaha-the progenitor of the world-aforetime shaved the heads of his sons, the Moon, Varuna, and Brahma, that their lives might be prolonged, and that fame and prosperity might attend their career. This mantram is said to include the very words the god used when he performed the operation, and the priest simply repeats them word for word.

A short time after the Upanayanam, another ceremony is performed with reference to the hair; this time in a temple; the former one being in the house. At this second ceremony, the four spots that had

been left unshorn around the sikha are shaven clean off, and no hair is left on the head but the top-knot itself. The Sikha is held to be very sacred and it must never be removed for any cause whatever; without it the man is no true Hindu, nor can he perform any religious ceremonies whatever. I have enquired of learned Pandits as to what would happen if, through baldness, or by the effects of any disease or accident, a man were to lose his Sikha, and it appears that in such a case, the absence of the hair would not necessarily disqualify him from performing the sacred offices. This, perhaps, is an interesting point, as it seems to be one of the very few bits of elasticity found in the rigid Brahminical law.

A custom has grown up that appears to be generally followed, though it is said to be against the strict letter of the law, for boys to allow the side patches, (Kakapaksham), to grow again after they have been shaved off as above. This is done to follow out the native idea of beauty! These beauty patches, however, can only be worn during the life time of the boy's parents; upon the death of either parent he must remove all except the Sikha. If a young man is so fortunate as to have his parents living until he himself advances in age, say something between twenty and thirty, and arrives at a period when he adopts for himself strict religious observances, he removes all these side-locks. He then, for his own soul's benefit, adopts religious observances, such as prayers and sacrifices to fire and the sun (hōmam and suryanamaskāram), for performing which he must be clean shaven except the Sikha.

There is a passage in Manu which seems to allude to a custom that appears now to have become extinct. I can find no trace of the ceremony here alluded to, though it may possibly be in vogue in some other parts of India. The passage in question is as follows:

"The ceremony of Cesanta, or cutting off the hair, is ordained for the priest in the sixteenth year from conception; for the soldier, in the twenty-second; for a merchant, two years later than that." (II. 65.)

The Hindu, in South India at least, does not wear a beard at all, though from pictures one sometimes sees of Brahmins in the North, it appears as if it is worn by some up in those parts. Customs may differ in such widely distant places in this as in other respects. It appears also that the Kulin, and some other Brahmins of the north, do not even wear the Sikha; but crop their hair something after the European fashion, but these must, by this fact alone, be disqualified from performing sacrificial and other rites and ceremonies.

When it is said that the Hindu does not wear a beard, we must except the Yögis or hermits who do not shave at all, either the head or the face. In the chapter on Devotion, Manu lays down the law as follows on this point :

"When the father of a family perceives his muscles become flaccid and his hair grey, and sees the child of his child, let him then seek refuge in a forest.

"Let him wear a black antelope's hide, or a vesture of bark; let him bathe evening and morning; let him suffer the hairs of his beard, and his nails to grow continually." (VI. 2, 6.)

When a Hindu, however, becomes a Sanyasi, that is, enters the fourth, and last stage of the Hindu spiritual life, he, being supposed to have done with all sublunary affairs, even religious rites and ceremonies, cuts off his sikha and indeed all hair from his face and head, and henceforth goes quite bare.

Having thus performed religious acts in a forest during the third portion of his life, let him become a Sanyasi for the fourth portion of it, abandoning all sensual affections, and wholly reposing in the Supreme Spirit.

His hair, nails, and beard being clipped, bearing with him a dish, a staff, and a water pot, his whole mind being fixed on god, let him wander about continually, without giving pain to animal or vegetable beings. (Manu VI. 33, 52.)

The moustache is, as a rule, worn by Hindus of every caste and nation except the priestly classes.

The priest, of whatever caste he may be, even the Dasari or pariah priest, must have his face clean. shaven (see chapter on Mendicity). In the chapter on the sacred marks, mention was made of the three great schools of philosophy into which Hindus are. divided. There are those who belong to the Visishtädvaita school and who, as followers of Ramānuja, are strict worshippers of Vishnu only. This sect never wear the moustache, but are always clean shaven. It may also be mentioned in passing, that they also abstain from smoking, although they may console themselves with snuff! The Smarthas who hold the Advaita doctrine, and who worship Siva in particular but reverence Vishnu, and the Madhras who follow the Dvaita system, and who worship Vishnu in particular, but reverence Siva are both divided into two divisions of secular and priestly brahmins. The Smarthas are Niyogis and Vaidikis; and the Madhvas are Vyaparis and Acharyas. The Vaidīkis and the Acharyas are the priestly classes, and as such they should always have a face quite clean shaven. They also, as with the Rāmānujas, should abstain from smoking. In these latter days, however, the Vaidikis are far from strict in these matters; and many of them wear the facial hirsute ornament, as do their secular brethren. They also, in very many cases, have abandoned the priestly office, and follow the profession of the bar, or go into any of the various branches of the public service; they may also be found in numbers following educational and other like pursuits; for all of these occupations their hereditary connection with vedic learning and general culture seems to particularly fit them. Therefore if a Hindu is seen to have a clean shaven face, it may, as a rule, be set down that he is either a priest or a member of one of the priestly classes.

There is, we should observe, an exception to this, which may be mentioned here. Amongst Europeans the sign of mourning for deceased relatives is to wear black clothing; but amongst the Hindus, besides the absence of colour in the face mark, as already mentioned in the previous chapter, the sign of