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BRAHMINS.

and female, assemble at the house on the day fixed, bringing garlands of flowers with them, and accompanied by musicians, themselves chanting certain litanies and holy texts. Every step in the ceremony, the arrival of relatives, and of the officiating priest, the seating of the boy under an awning of plantain and mango leaves, is marked by offerings. Presently the boy's head is shaved by the village barber; he is then bathed, anointed, and dressed in red garments; and, after sacrifice, the sacred thread is passed over his left shoulder, falling to the right hand under his arm. At this moment his father, if living, or the priest, repeats to him in a whisper the mystic text, the Gayatri, which has received many translations, but which signifies, "Let us meditate on the adorable light of the divine ruler; may it guide our intellects." The first thread is then removed, and one in the form which is to be worn hereafter continually, of a stronger make, is put on for every-day use. 

The boy is now a Bramhacharee and a mendicant. Attired as such with staff in hand, he goes first to his mother, and touching her feet, prays for her blessing as he bows before her; then to his father, the elders of his family in succession, and the friends of his family, each of whom gives something. Nor is it uncommon in some districts, to see the young Brahmin, accompanied by a few boys of his own rank, and attended by music, go from house to house of his town or village, and beg, as a Bramhacharee is bound to do. A feast concludes the ceremony, and at night the boy is put to sleep on a deer skin, a bed of koosa grass, or on a bare blanket, as emblematic of his poverty and renunciation of the world. For twelve days he has to eat a peculiar plain diet, and at the end of this period the ceremony is complete. The lad is no longer a Bramhacharee mendicant, but has become a "Grihusta," or secular householder. He is also Dwija, or twice-born; for the sacrament he has completed releases him from the impurity of conception and birth, and endues him with the emanation of divine power, which he is to exercise hereafter. After this ceremony he can be married, and, as far as he is acquainted with them, can join other Brahmins in the performance of ceremonials; but a perfect knowledge of them, even of the most ordinary rites, and of all the texts and recitations which must be repeated without book, requires long and painful study. Among many of the highest sects of Brahmins, girls as well as boys are brought into the second birth; but women are not invested with the sacred thread, unless, indeed, they become Bramhacharees, and devote themeselves to a life of penance and mendicancy, in which case they shave their heads, wear coarse white garments, and travel as pilgrims to distant shrines, not unusually dressed as men. Such classes, or other classes of Brahmins, may be met with in future illustrations, and further observations may be reserved till then. In the Photograph, the boy on the left appears to be a neophyte under instruction, the person reading may be a pundit, and the figure sitting by him the boy's gooroo, or religious preceptor.