1GG THE IXPIAN ANTIQUARY. [Jvm, 1875. chief figure one womaxt with a trident, to hers a standing figure almost destroyed ; below it two men sitting on stools of different heights. The rest are behind ; one holds a fruit, like that held by the two mentioned above, on the palm of her hand. The men have cnrled wigs like barristers, the women their hair in a roll or turban not unlike in shape to a Glengarry bonnet, or the bead-dress of one of the two figures looking at a bottle in the fresco of the Dying Lady in Cave XVI. at Ajan- ■'» Ant. vol. HI. p. 269. The right doorpost of the large door has a mortice-hole cat in it ns if to receive some small woodwork ; but there is no corresponding one opposite it ; and as a stick in it would not cross the i!i n.i-, liur project diagonally into the inner veranda, I am at a loss to know the use of it . OBSERVATIONS ON TEE KUDUML* BY THE REV. DR. R. CALDWELL, S. P. G. F. P. The tuft of hair which Hindus are accustomed to leave when shaving their heads is called in Sanskrit the s i k h a , in Tamil the kndnmi; t and for some years past a considerable number of European missionaries in the Tamil country have come to regard the wearing of this tuft as a badge of Hinduism, and hence to consider it to be their duty to require the natives employed in the missions under their superintendence to cut off their kndnmi s as a sine qiui nan of their retention of mission employment. There are many references in Man u and other ancient Hindu books to the practice of
- tonsure,' — understanding thereby either ton-
sun- leaving a tuft, which is the mode in ordi- uso, or tonsure including the shaving oflf of the tuft, which is the mode prescribed for ceremonial defilements; but with one exception, so far as I am aware, those books throw no light on the question on which the lawfulness of the wearing of thekudumi, or tuft, by native Ohristianfl turns. They merely enjoin the kndumi to be worn, jnst as they enjoin the minutest details in bathing and dressing, but they supply us with no explanation of the reason why it had come to be worn, or of the light in which other modes of wearing the hair were regarded. The exception to which I refer is contained in the following extract from the Vishnu Pu Professor Wilson's translation, page 371. — a passage which throws more light ou the ques- tion at issue than any other with which I am acquainted : — " Accordingly wlien he (Sagara) became a man he put nearly the whole of the H a i h a y a S • ThiapM' * bra contributor, with whom we agree in thinking it dewrves 'a more permanent place than in the columns of a newspaper,' where it first to death, and would have destroyed the Sa k a s, Yavanas, Kambojas, Pa rail as, and P ;i h n a v a s , but that they applied to Yasishtha, the family priest of Sagara, for protection* Yasishtha, regarding them as annihilated (or deprived of power), though living, thus be to S a g a r a : ' Enough, enough, my son, pursue no further these objects of your wrath, whom you may look upon as no more. In order to fulfil your vow, I have separated them from affinity to the regenerate tribes, and from the dutu their castes. ' S a g a r a, in compliance with the injunctions of his spiritual guide, contr himself, therefore, with imposing upon the van- quished nations peculiar distinguishing marks. He made the Y a v a n a s shave their heads en- tirely; the Sakas he compelled to shave the upper half of their heads ; the P a r a d a s wore their hair long, and the Pabnavas let their beards grow, in obedience to his commands. Them also, and other Kshatriya tribes, he deprived of the established usages of oblations to fire and the study of the Vedas; and separated from religions rites and abandoned by the Br'ihmans, these different tribes -. -M lethchas. Sagara, after the reco kingdom, reigned over the seven-zoned earth with undisputed dominion." To this passage Professor Wilson appends the following note : —
- The Asiatic nations generally shave
head, either wholly or in part. Amongst the Greeks it was common to shave the fore part of the head, — a custom introduced, according to Plutarch, by the Abantes, whom Homer calls ' long-haired behind, ' and followed, according to appeared. V. however, to abridge it by omitting portions m -v addressed Ui mi aries.— Eii. f In ilai«*hl, She^dl.
