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THE LIFE STORY OF A JAINA
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mony.
On some auspicious day during the early months the feed- Feeding ing ceremony (Abotana) takes place, at which the father's ceresister again presides, but this time she gains, instead of giving, a present. The aunt takes the baby on her lap and places some dudhapāka1 on a rupee, and seven times over takes some of this and places it in the child's mouth, whereupon the father makes her a present.
ṇāṁ.
In another ceremony, Gotrijhāraṇām, which takes place Gotriwhen the child is three (or sometimes five) months old, the jharaaunt is once more the gainer. This time all the women of the household join in preparing specially dainty food in readiness for a feast, and then place on a stool some grain, some sopări nut, some small copper coins and a silver coin; the baby is made to bow to this collection, and then the father presents the piece of silver to his sister and feasts all his friends. Very much the same ceremony is repeated when the child goes to school in either his fifth or seventh year.
The whole thought of a household in India seems to an Betrothal. outsider to centre round marriage and motherhood, and all the steps that lead up to them are marked with ceremonials. The age of betrothal (Sagai) is steadily rising, and though it varies in different localities, a boy among the Jaina is usually betrothed about fifteen or twenty and a girl some. what earlier. The parents on both sides look out for a suitable match, and when one has been discovered, the girl's father sends to the boy's father as a token of his intentions a cocoa-nut and a rupee, and a priest is called in to mark the forehead of the boy and his relatives with a cândalo or auspicious mark. A lucky woman (i.e. one whose husband is living and who has never lost a child) or a virgin then takes the cocoa-nut and marks a candalo on it and on the rupee, and the boy's father summons all his friends to a feast, to which each of the guests brings a cocoa-nut. After two or three days a present,
1 A favourite Indian dainty resembling milk pudding.
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