Feeding ceremony.On some auspicious day during the early months the feeding ceremony (Aboṭaṇa) takes place, at which the father’s sister again presides, but this time she gains, instead of giving, a present. The aunt takes the baby on her lap and places some dudhapāka[1] 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.
Gotrījhāraṇāṁ.In another ceremony, Gotrījhāraṇāṁ, which takes place when the child is three (or sometimes five) months old, the aunt 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 sopārī 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.
Betrothal.The whole thought of a household in India seems to an outsider to centre round marriage and motherhood, and all the steps that lead up to them are marked with ceremonials. The age of betrothal (Sagāi) 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 somewhat 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 ċāndalo 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 ċāndalo 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,- ↑ A favourite Indian dainty resembling milk pudding.
