Appendix Six
Rites of Passage and Death Ceremonies

In this volume one major aspect of Newar religious life has been neglected—the sequence of samskara s, the rites of passage that each individual traditionally undergoes on passing from one culturally defined stage of life to the next. A consideration of these ceremonies with their emphasis on such matters as birth, maturation, menstruation, initiation, marriage, old age, and death is of central importance for the study of aspects of intimate individual experience and family organization to cultural tradition—matters that we hope to deal with more extensively elsewhere.

The timing of the rites of passage is generated by the tempos of each individual's life cycle, in contrast to the annual events that have preoccupied us in this volume which submit the entire city to the seemingly impersonal tempos of regular cosmic events, affecting all in the same way, bringing everyone's life into a common synchrony. Each citizen of Bhaktapur—and the family group clustering for the occasion around him or her—undergoes, m contrast, each of the samskara s in his or her own unique turn. In resonance with this individually determined tempo the samskara s are most centrally concerned with aspects of the representation, formation, and maintenance of certain of those urban "cellular units"—individuals, households, and components of the extended family—whose outer faces, whose specialized outputs and inputs, constitute and are integrated by the mesocosmic integrative processes of the larger city. The individual at the focus of the samskara s moves through them—or more precisely is moved by them—into larger and larger networks of other people, into more and more developed and responsible moral "personhood," and into wider and wider spaces. While there is some minor reference to the constituting spaces of the city, the movements marked by the samskara s are primarily those that we have designated in chapter 16 as within the "tubular" life of the family, a life whose main movement is from an opening into this present lifetime from a

previous birth, then to a progression through the stages of the moral life of the family and extended family, and finally on to an elaborately conceived postmortem state at the other end. In all this the family is central and the city only a peripheral environment.

Throughout the sequence of the samskara s there is first a gradual separation from the mother, a successive movement into larger sets of relations and spaces, an increase in the definition of personhood, and an associated emphasis on increasing purity and moral responsibility. Then in the later samskara s there is a movement toward a transcendence of ordinary personhood and responsibilities, and a preparation for postmortem life. Yet, underneath this theme of progressive growth and eventual transcendence there is an important common theme or implication running through all of the samskara s, an implication that is consonant with the implications of the annual festivals on the one hand and with the general shape of the experience and the informal and formal education of people in Bhaktapur on the other. This is the absolute dependence of the individual undergoing the rites of passage on the precise and often difficult work of others. In the samskara the essential workers are family members, who are necessary for the individual's development, beginning with the enabling mantra that will produce his or her ability to speak and ending with the collective work of forming a body for his or her spirit after death and moving it on to its place of judgment in Yama's kingdom. The subject of the samskara rites is dependent on the strenuous, traditionally specified activities of the performers of the samskara s to form his or her very self—and those responsible workers, for the most part members of household and phuki (abetted in the more complex rites such as cremation by specialists), must commit themselves over and over again to the performance of the traditional practices of the rites in the service of the rite's subject individual. As the subject of the samskara s needs the family workers and their assistants and comes to learn to depend on them, so do they in turn need the forms provided by tradition, and reiterate that dependence on tradition in the course of the mass of samskara s they perform for others in the course of a normal life cycle.

Not only is the locus of the samskara s in the matrix of household and extended family different from that of the annual festivals but the nature and place of the deities is also different. The deities involved are not the deities emphasized in the major city festivals, deities who are, to a large degree, both special and central to Bhaktapur as a city. In most rites the reference to deities—aside from the lineage gods who, in keeping with the emphasis on family, are emphasized—are minimal and peripheral. Where deities are present and emphasized they are the old major gods of the central Hindu tradition, the sun, Sarasvati, Visnu^[*] , Siva as a linga^[*] , gods from a time and place beyond the city. In the samskara s people are more Hindus than they are Newars or citizens of Bhaktapur.

However, there are certain exceptions to this within the group of samskara s. While most of Bhaktapur's samskara s are variants of traditional South Asian samskara s (cf., e.g., Pandey 1969) there are some (and some aspects of others) that are considered to be specifically Newar; that is, they are not performed by the Indo-Nepalese. Of these the most significant "Newar" rite is the Ihi or

mock-marriage. Because of the implications of mock-marriage, aspects of menarche rites and of "true" marriage must also be modified in ways locally thought to be distinctively Newar. The Ihi ceremony does have, not surprisingly, a local deity. This is Parvati as the patroness of the Kathmandu Valley. There are also included among the special Newar samskara s a set of old-age celebrations not performed by the Newar's Hindu neighbors.

Bhaktapur's samskara s are sufficiently complex in themselves, in their social distribution, and in their relations to traditional South Indian versions, that they would warrant a full study in themselves.^[1] We will list here the total collection of rites identified as Bhaktapur's Hindu samskara s by local Brahmans. We can only sketch some of their dimensions for reference purposes, giving relatively more details of the specifically Newar samskara s and of those aspects of others that are particularly relevant to the concerns of this study. While a few samskaras are done only by upper segments of the macrostatus hierarchy, and are thus socially differentiating, many of them are reportedly performed by all ranks, including the untouchables.^[2] We have no systematic information, however, on differences in the form of the procedures at different levels and among different thar s, nor on when various samskara s may have been introduced into middle or lower thar practices m a possible relatively recent gesture of "Sanskritization."

Bhaktapur does not have prenatal samskara s. The first samskara , the Jihvasodhan, takes place after birth. Cremation is considered to be the final samskara , and the many death ceremonies that follow cremation—and that we discuss in this appendix—are not included in the term. Some of the samskara s are usually given their traditional Sanskrit names, by upper-status speakers, at least, for others alternate or exclusively Newari names are used.

1. Writing a mantra on the tongue: Jihvasodhana.

The particular Hindu postnatal samskara emphasized in Bhaktapur by upper-level thar s, at least, is a variant of the traditional medhajanana , the "production of intelligence." Following birth, after the infant has been cleaned and before it is put to the mother's breast, a mantra representing the goddess of learning Sarasvati is written on the infant's tongue in honey, often by means of a silver stylus, by the infant's father. This is said to ensure that the child will be able to talk and to learn well.

2. Application of lamp black to the child's eyes by the father's sister.

On the sixth day after birth the father's sisters, the infant's nini s, and members of the phuki group come to the house. The nini s bring small gifts for the infant. Six oil lamps (usually small unglazed clay dishes with oil and two wicks in each of them) are placed on beds of unhusked rice and lit. Each nini , in turn, prepares lamp black by holding a metal container over each of the six flames sequentially to collect lamp black, which she then places on the infant's eyelids. This is said to strengthen the eyes, and to protect them from disease and blindness. The naked infant is rubbed with oil by each of the nini s in turn. When each has done her part, the infant is dressed in a shirt-like garment.

3. Name giving: Namakarana.

This takes place on the twelfth day after birth. The time of the cutting of the infant's umbilical cord, when it is thus separated from its mother, is considered the moment of birth, and is made note of. On the sixth day after birth the child's astrological status is supposed to be supernaturally inscribed on its forehead by the divine record-keeper Citragupta. On the sixth day (the day that lamp black is placed on the infant's eyes) a Josi, an astrologer, comes to the house and is told the time of birth—the day, hour, and minute. He tells the family something about the infant's astrological condition, and then returns to his house to prepare a written account, a jata :, which will be presented to the child on this twelfth day.^[3] At this time the child is given a secret name known to household members but not ordinarily used. This name is chosen by the household, but must begin with the proper first letter determined by the Josi from his reading of the infant's horoscope. The name is written on the birth record, the jata :, by the Josi, and is whispered into the infant's ear at this time by the head of the household.

In upper-status families, those who have the right to Tantric initiation, just after the phuki 's purification following the ten-day period of birth contamination the infant is taken to be presented to the family lineage deity, the Aga(n) God.^[4] As the place where this deity is kept, the Aga(n) House, is usually separate from the family house, among these families this is the first occasion on which the child is ceremonially taken out of the house.

4. The rice feeding ceremony: Ja(n)ko.

This ceremony takes place for girls when they are either five or seven months of age and for boys when they are six or eight months. The earlier time is the usually preferred date; the later one is used if there is some polluting condition in the family, or if the earlier date is considered astrologically inauspicious. This is (in the nomenclature used by the upper-level thar s) a maca ("child") ja(n)ko ; the term "ja(n)ko " is also used for certain old-age ceremonies. There is an alternate term used by many upper-status people (although seldom by Brahmans), and used as the ordinary term among Jyapus and lower thar s, Ja cipa(n) thiyekegu , "feeding [the infant] with boiled rice."^[5] The elements of this ceremony common to the various thar s are the "rice feeding" itself and the taking of the child out of the household to the neighboring Ganesa^[*] shrine. Upper-level thar s add further elements.

In the first focus^[6] of the ritual, at the proper astrological time, the sait , the infant is fed boiled rice and other food (such as bread, fruit, curds, milk) by the phuki leader, the phuki naya :. In a common interpretation the mother's milk is not sufficient to feed the infant any more and it must be "taught" to eat other foods. The infant's diet had been mother's milk, typically supplemented by honey, rice flour, milk from other sources, and clarified butter. Now boiled rice and other mashed-up foods are added. It is said that with this shift in its diet the infant can now be taken care of by people other than its mother.

After the rice feeding and before the next major phase of the sequence other elements may be added to the ceremony. In upper-status families at this point the beak of a live and carefully held gander may be introduced into the infant's mouth so that it touches the tongue "in order to give the infant strength in

digesting its food as Agni (the fire deity) was able to digest the sacrifice." In a practice followed in many thar s (many more than do the gander ceremony) the child is now surrounded by various objects that represent interests and professions that would be appropriate given its gender and status, as well as by objects that would be inappropriate. These might included a book, a pen, soil, rice, ornaments, and items representing some particular trade. The child is now watched to see which objects seem to interest it. It is said that if it is interested in the wrong kinds of things it must be watched and guarded against the development of that interest.

In the next major movement of the samskara , done by all the thar s who do it at all, in another movement of separation from the mother the child is taken by its paju , one of its mother's brothers, and carried out of the house in a procession preceded by musicians and followed by men of the infant's father's phuki .^[7] Women will not join the procession, although young girls may join it. The paju carries the infant to the local Ganesa^[*] shrine or temple—introducing the child, it is said, to the neighborhood—and then to other temples that are important to the family. Each temple is circumambulated and offerings are given in behalf of the infant (symbolized by being first held to the infant's head in mimicry of a respect gesture) to the temple or shrine deity. The procession then returns to the house where the paju returns the infant to its mother.

While in the previous samskara s the household and the patrilineal phuki members—the groups who had shared in the pollution of the infant's birth—were the ritual actors, in this samskara a new kind of participant is introduced, the mother's brother, the paju , representing the matriline. The paju will be of central importance in many of the subsequent samskara s. The paju now gives a symbolic gift of money to the mother "to compensate her for having taken the [paternal] household's child out of the house." Then as representative of the mother's natal household he gives substantial and valuable presents to the child, the mother, and other household members. (The paju will return again, echoing this first visit, with gifts at the time of a boy's second birthday, and of boys' and girls' fourth birthday.) Members of the phuki and affinally related kin and friends then present swaga(n) (app. 4) and other gifts to the infant.

The ceremony is followed by a major feast, a bhwae (which characteristically is attended by guests from a group wider than phuki ). This is the first of the samskara s in which such feasts are given. If a family is able to do it, in some cases, such as the birth of a first son, this feast may include hundreds of invited guests.

Now the sequence of samskara s separates for a while for boys and for girls. The boys will go on to the Busakha and Kaeta Puja rites; the girls, to the Ihi and Barhataegu rites.

5. Boy's hair shaving: Busakha.

The Busakha , or hair-shaving ceremony, like the following (and often intimately associated) rite for boys, the Kaeta Puja , not only moves the boy from one "Newar" or Hindu stage to the next but also, in so doing, differentiates him from the people of other thar s and, much more saliently, other status levels. At the same time it differentiates him from females.

Not only do girls not have these two ceremonies, but there are emphases on the boy's maleness within them.^[8] The Busakha represents the beginning of a boy's moral responsibility for the dharma of his thar , a responsibility that, however, is most clearly and fully introduced in the next samskara , the Kaeta Puja .

The Busakha and the Kaeta Puja are often associated conceptually and among many thar s are approximated m time. The Rajopadhyaya Brahmans separate the two widely. Among them the Busakha is often done when boys are five years of age; the Kaeta Puja (associated for the Brahmans with the traditional Upanayana initiation) comes much later, at eleven or thirteen years of age. For those other thar s who do the Busakha as well as the Kaeta Puja ,^[9] however, the Busakha may be done only three days prior to the Kaeta Puja —as is often the case with the Chathariyas and Pa(n)cthariyas—or immediately prior to the Kaeta Puja , on the same day, in a combined ceremony (as is the case with the Jyapus). The Busakha and the Kaeta Puja must be done when a boy is at an odd-numbered age, and is usually done at the ages of five, seven, or nine.^[10]

The core act in this samskara is the shaving of the boy's head with, as is the traditional custom of "twice-born" Hindu men, the exception of an occipital queue of hair, called in Newari the angsa .^[11] Boys do not have their hair cut before this ceremony, and it is said that after the Busakha the boy, because he has had his hair cut, no longer looks like a girl. In the course of the elaborate ceremony the key moment of transition comes when the paju at the proper astrological sait shaves four patches of hair on the boy's head, representing, in sequence, east, south, north, and west, conventionally the front, right, left, and rear of his head, respectively. The paju will also much the boy's right and left earlobes with needles, to symbolize ear piercing, another traditional Hindu samskara that is done m Bhaktapur along with the hair shaving. A Nau, a member of the barber thar , does the full shaving of the head and the actual piercing of the ears. After the barber's work the boy is stripped naked in front of the onlookers and helped by family members in bathing.

In the course of the day representatives of the phuki go to worship at the mandalic^[*] pitha as they will, starting with this samskara , at the time of all subsequent auspicious ones.

Ideally the Busakha is the first of the rites that ceremonially mark an increasing social responsibility—the others, for a boy or young man, being the Kaeta Puja and marriage. Traditionally in the course of South Asian samskara s "after the Cudakarana^[*] or tonsure when the child grew into a boy, his duties were prescribed and his responsibilities explained . . . without encumbering his mind and body with book-knowledge and school discipline" (Pandey 1969, 33). Those disciplines were to follow later.

For most thar s it is the Kaeta Puja that almost immediately follows the Busahkha (and that in the lower thar s may be done without a Busakha ), which is the samskara most clearly associated with a change m the behavior expected of the boy, a change defined with Kaeta Puja as the boy's new status as a fully privileged and responsible member of his thar . Among the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans and the upper-status priestly thar s who emulate them (Josi, Tini, and Acariya) where there is a separation of some years between the two samskara s,

a boy after his Busakha is expected to begin to be cautious and responsible about polluting contacts in his play and other activities outside the family. It is said that he should now begin to represent the Brahmans and to act like one outside the family.^[12]

6. Boy's full membership in their thar: Kaeta Puja.

This is one of the major samskara s and, in contrast to most of the preceding ones, is done by thar s throughout the macrosocial system, including the Po(n) untouchables. It takes its name from the giving of the Kaeta , a loincloth, and derives from the traditional Hindu Upanayana ceremony, that initiation into the knowledge, responsibilities, and full membership of one's jat or "caste" which entailed the "new birth" of the sacred thread-wearing, twice-born non-Sudra castes whose sacred threads were presented to them in this ceremony.

The Kaeta Puja varies in its timing, its elaboration, and its details among different thar s. But the presentation of the loincloth is always of focal importance. That presentation, like all the focal moments in samskara s, must be made at the astrologically proper sait . Those thar s that wear the sacred thread (Tim and above) have a second climactic sait , the proper moment for the presentation of the thread.^[13]

The Kaeta Puja must be done in an odd-numbered year of age. It is usually performed by non-Brahmans at a relatively early age—five, seven, or nine. The Brahman customarily do the KaetaPuja at the age of nine or eleven, their boys' Busakha having been done at the age of five or seven. Those upper-level thar s whose members have priestly functions, and who wear the sacred thread (i.e., Josi, Tini, and Acariya), usually follow the Brahman pattern of having the Busakha at an early age and the Kaeta Puja several years later. For non-Brahman nonpriestly upper-level thar s the Kaeta Puja usually follows on the fourth day after the Busakha . For Jyapus and other middle-level and lower-level thar s who do the Busakha , it is usually combined with the Busakha in one continuous sequence.

For the Brahmans the Kaeta Puja ceremony is part of a complex set of events called Bura(n) taegu ,^[14] which represent the traditional Brahmanical initiation, the Upanayana , which is followed by a now abbreviated period lasting for three months of further study and ritual activities representing the traditional period of Brahmanical studies, the Brahmacarya .

For Jyapu and other middle-level thar s served by Brahmans the Kaeta Puja (with its immediately preceding introductory Busakha ) is usually the first of the samskara s that employ Brahman purohita s.^{[,][ 15,16]} The thar s that combine the two samskara s begin by the shaving of the boy's head, starting with a gestural cutting by the paju completed by the Nau.

Now among the middle-level thars after the hair shaving, and among upper-level thars at the beginning of the independently held Kaeta Puja , a special purification of the boy takes place. A Nauni, a woman of the barber thar , pares the boy's finger and toe nails, For the higher-level thar s this is done at an astrologically determined sait . The nail paring represents a further degree of purification than the boy has previously had, and thus a further degree of resulting purity. While in the case of phuki pollution, prior to the Busakha children only

need a simple purification and following it upper-status boys must have their hair shaven, now, following Kaeta Puja boys must also have their nails pared in a full participation in adult male major purification. They are now full "persons" in the sense defined by considerations of purity and impurity.

After the nail paring the boy is washed and brought naked to the previously prepared and purified puja area, where the ceremony will proceed under the direction of a purohita . In its course a ceremonial loincloth is presented to the naked boy and tied on him by the senior active male phuki member, the phuki naya :. The paju has, in this phase, only a secondary role; he brings additional loincloths as gifts to the now mature boy. After the kaeta is given, the upper-level non-Brahmanical thar s may then give the boy his sacred thread.^[17] But for all thar s, whether they have rights to wearing the sacred thread or not, it is the kaeta itself—the Kaupina , an important part of traditional Hindu Upanayana rites—which marks the transition of the boy into full membership in his thar .

The Kaeta Puja is also a dekha (Sanskrit diksa ), an initiation (chap. 9). The family purohita , now acting as the boy's guru , reveals to him one or more of the mantra s that the phuki gives to its boys in the course of various initiations (chap. 9). Among the upper thar s this is done at the time of the presentation of the sacred thread, and is the first of a series of dekha s that the upper-status boy and young man will be given—the later ones being related to the Tantric worship of the lineage gods and to the special knowledge that may be acquired in preparation for death. At the time of the Kaeta Puja the boy is also instructed about morning and evening worship and about ritual cleanliness, and—in the upper—level thar s—may be told about elementary meditation techniques using the mantra s he has been given.

After the Kaeta Puja the boy is theoretically a responsible and full member of his thar . He can now perform all the rituals, most importantly the death ceremonies for his parents, with the exception of those upper-status Tantric rituals that will need further initiation.

The Busakha and Kaeta Puja are devoted to the social and psychological formation and definition of boys.^[18] During childhood there are also two samskara s for girls, the mock-marriage and the menarche ceremony. Then, with the marriage ceremony, both men and women will again undergo the same samskara s.

7. Mock-marriage: Ihi.

The Newar samskara s in Bhaktapur are for the most part closely modeled on the traditional Hindu samskara s. The most dramatic exception is the Ihi , the mock marriage ceremony for girls.^[19] The implications of the Ihi require major changes in traditional menarche rites, and some changes m the traditional "true" marriage.^[20]Ihi and the related modified menarche and marriage rites were traditionally not done by the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans,^[21] nor, for different reasons, by the unclean thar s from level XIV, that is, the Nae, and below. "Ihi " is an old Newari word for marriage, but it is now used only for the mock-marriage, not the "true" marriage, the Byaha .^[22] The Ihi samskara must be done before the onset of menstruation, and can take place at any time between, approximately, five and eleven years of age. At the core of the Ihi is a traditional Hindu ceremony of marriage, but the spouse is

Visnu/Narayana^[*] .^[23] The premenstrual virgin girl is given in marriage to the deity as a gift or offering in the traditional Hindu marriage act called kanya dana , "the giving of a virgin daughter." Because of this prior gift in the Newar mock-marriage, the kanya dana segment of the marriage ceremony is, in contrast to traditional South Asian practice, omitted in Bhaktapur's true marriage ceremony.

The legends told to explain the Ihi ceremony emphasize one of its central implications. Parvati was the daughter of Himavan, the deity of the Himalayas. When she was to be married to Siva, Himavan gave Nepal (that is, the present Kathmandu Valley) to her as her dowry. One day as Parvati was walking through the Valley she heard an old woman crying. Parvati asked her why she was crying. "My husband is dead. A husband is necessary for a woman; without a husband a woman's life is terrible." Parvati pitied her and asked Siva for a boon. "Can you do something for the women of my natal home so that they will not become widows?" Siva answered, "Narayana^[*] and I will arrange it so that there will no longer be any widows in Nepal." Thus the Newars were given the Ihi ceremony. Narayana^[*] was the groom, and Siva the witness.

The legend not only emphasizes a maneuver for avoiding the ritual disabilities of widowhood but places the scene in the setting of Parvati's natal home, her tha: che(n) , the setting where a woman is a relatively indulged child and daughter, rather than being in the greatly contrasting condition of wife and mother in the home of her husband's family and m the circle of his phuki . The women of "Nepal," that is, the Newar women of the Kathmandu Valley, are Parvati's sisters, not her sisters-in-law.

The Ihi ceremony is, as a marriage had to be in Hindu tradition, a premenarche marriage. This means that the second marriage, the one to a mortal, can be delayed as all second marriages can, until after menarche—often long after it. Thus both the necessity of child marriage^[24] and the full force of widow disability are ameliorated by the invention of this Newar samskara . The Ihi ceremony is, as we shall see, in some aspects of its form as well as in its legendary intent, somewhat subversive of the Hindu patriarchal and hierarchical principles that are central to other samskara s.

Ihi ceremonies involve a group of girls, often a large group. There are several Ihi ceremonies in Bhaktapur during the course of a year. Each is sponsored by a well-to-do man who has a (biological or classificatory) daughter, granddaughter, or younger sister to be given the samskara .^[25] The sponsor will gain religious merit and social prestige through his sponsorship. Traditionally sponsors were Chathariya and Pa(n)cthariya, but in recent years Brahmans and Jyapus (the latter made relatively wealthy through land reforms and beginning to follow upper-status religious practices) have also become sponsors. The exact range of thar s taking part in a particular ceremony is determined m part by the status level of the sponsor; thus the lower-level clean thar s are more likely to be found at a Jyapu-sponsored ceremony than at a Brahman-sponsored one.

In the days preceding the Ihi ceremony each girl who is to take part receives invitations from her tha:thiti (the kin acquired through out-marriages of the phuki women) and from her paju 's (mother's brother) households in

Bhaktapur—and sometimes in nearby towns—to visit them. She spends several days in these visits and is offered swaga(n) and food in each household. On the day before the main Ihi ceremony there are various preliminary activities. During the day the main Acaju priest who will loin with other priests in the ceremonies sacrifices a goat at the sponsor's local areal Ganesa^[*] shrine, and then visits each of the city's nine mandalic^[*]pitha s to make offerings of samhae and alcoholic spirits to the goddesses. He begins, as is always the case in such sequential visits, with Brahmani to the east, ending after a circuit of the periphery in a clockwise direction with Tripurasundari at the center. He worships, making the proper sacrificial offerings, at each pitha in turn. While there are visits to the particular mandalic areal pitha of phuki groups in the course of most of that phuki 's samskara s, this movement to all the pitha s reflects the amalgamation of the Ihi girls into a spatially and socially heterogeneous and at the same time integrated group.

During this preliminary day—as they would before any major samskara —the members of each involved household will have preparatory purification ceremonies, and those families with Aga(n) deities will make offerings of samhae to them. In the latter part of the day before the ceremony the sponsoring household, the one where the ceremony is to take place, performs a Duso (or Duswa ), "a looking in" ceremony, that is, a preparation for the visit of the deity. This is thought of as a notice and "invitation" to the deity to attend the ceremonies. This ceremony is done by Brahmans for all their own major auspicious samskara s, but by other thar s only m this preparation by the sponsor of the Ihi ceremony. The Duso begins when the main Brahman purohita (there are usually two or three Brahmans involved in the ceremony), and the two auxiliary priests (a Tini and a Josi), the sponsor of the Ihi , and, often, other senior males of his household, go in a procession accompanied by musicians to a location near the Jyatha Ganesa^[*] shrine in the potter's quarter, where a purified puja area is prepared. A member of the Kumha: (potter) thar , accompanied by members of the procession, brings black clay to the ritual area. The black clay is formed into a ball, the "All(n) God," said to represent "Siva and all the (benign) gods." The Ali(n) God is now worshiped along with a clay pot, a Brahmakalasa , on which there is an image of Brahma, representing the trimurti —Brahma, Siva, and Visnu^[*] . Another piece of black clay is set aside to represent Ganesa^[*] in the next day's ceremony.^[26] Carrying the Ali(n) God, the Brahmakalasa, and the clay that will represent Ganesa^[*] , the group returns to the house of the sponsor in a procession and is met at the house's pikha lakhu by the wife of the main purohita . She now performs a laskusa —a formal ceremony greeting the deities and the members of the procession and chasing off evil influences in a formal exorcism, followed by her leading the central participants into a sacred area, in this case the area in the house where the formal ceremonies will take place.^[27] Now the main purohita goes through the proceedings for ritually "establishing" (sthapana ) the Ali(n) God.

The girls who are to have the ceremony the next day are waiting at the house, and are each attended by at least one representive, (either male or female) of their phuki . The Ihi girls, are dressed in red, sometimes in a special red-and-yellow Ihi dress resembling a traditional marriage dress. One girl—

usually the sponsor's daughter, or perhaps niece or granddaughter—is chosen as the naki(n) , the "leader of the brides." A complex series of events follows, many of which mimic procedures from Brahmanical marriage ceremonies, which indicate in various ways the binding together of each girl with her divine groom and the divine witness.

These ceremonies are followed by a feast for the Ihi girls at the sponsor's house in which boiled rice, here called duso Ja prepared by the wives of the Brahman purohita s who are officiating at the ceremony, is eaten. This partaking by a group of mixed phuki s, thars, and macrostatus levels of boiled rice is unique. In other feasts where there are representatives of non-phuki groups, and above all, members of other thar s it is essential that boiled rice not be served—baji , beaten fried rice being served instead. Nevertheless, this apparent opposition to ordinary proper procedures is limited. First, the girls are not yet full members of their thar s. Second, the girls are separated into "eating groups" by floor space—so that some group separation is maintained. As in all ritual feasts, the leftover food is taken to the areal crossroads deity, the chwasa , and discarded. At the end of the ceremony the girls return to their homes. They are now considered to be in a state of purity. They must now fast until the next day.

The main events occur on the next day in an elaborate sequence requiring the services of Brahman, Josi, Tini, and Acaju priests. In the events of the day, as in those on the preliminary day, the Ihi mirrors many of the elements of South Asian upper-status traditional true marriage ceremonies, as well as having its unique aspects. The ceremony has three astrologically determined sait s, indicating the core transformative elements. This is the time for the preparatory purification by a nauni ;^[28] for the application of bhuisinha(n) , orange-red pigment, to the parting of the girl's hair;^[29] and for the presentation of the girls as gifts of a virgin, a kanya dana , to the deity.

In the course of the day's preparatory phases the Acaju does a puja called desa bali ,^[30] which is an offering to the gods of all the Tantric temples in the city, represented in the puja by grains of polished rice. There is nothing like this in ordinary samskara s.

The main images at the wedding—provided separately for each girl—are the bya (in Nepali, bel ) which is the fruit of the Bel plant (Aegle marmelos ), and a small gold image (or flat piece of gold with an image engraved on it). The bya represents Siva; the image represents Visnu/Narayana^[*] . Each girl is accompanied by her father (or, if he is not available, an elder brother or one of her father's brothers). He will offer her as a kanya dana to Visnu/Narayana^[*] . At the proper sait for the kanya dana each girl stands with her hand linked to her male donor's and the girl's mother (or, if necessary, a surrogate) pours ritually pure water and milk over their Joined hands. The donor says his name and (in the case of the upper-level thar s) the name of his gotra , his daughter's name, and the name of his father and grandfather. The daughter is to be presented "in the name of" these lineage members. At the exact astrological time—called out by a Josi—the donor gives his daughter to the god as manifested by pressing her thumb against the golden image. The image is held against the bya representing Siva as the witness to the marriage. The focal marriage is followed by a sequence of closing ceremonies, and ends with a supper of rich, sweet foods.

Many girls customarily establish bonds of fictive kinship with other girls during the Ihi ceremony by exchanging sinha(n) pigment and kisali , small pots containing husked rice grains. The pots and the rice are then used in offerings to a ceremonial sacrificial fire that had been made and worshiped at the beginning of the Ihi sequence by the attending priests. The bond friend or fictive sister is called a twae (chap. 6). During later life two young women may make themselves twae s in special ceremonies as men do, but the Ihi is the setting in which young girls characteristically form these bonds. It is noteworthy that in congruence with other implications of the Ihi ceremony, twae relations extend kinship beyond the phuki , and frequently beyond the thar , and, sometimes, even beyond the two girls' status levels.

The Ihi ceremony stands in a coherent contrast to the other city samskara s—all others (except the old-age ceremonies) variants of traditional Hindu rites of passage. In its main import it rationalizes an avoidance of premenarche marriages and of certain aspects, at least, of the stigmatization and disabling of widows in a society where, in consonance with its Himalayan roots, the status of women had long been relatively less constrained than m Indo-Nepalese and Indian Hindu societies. In keeping with its legendary reference to the Newar's homeland as Parvati's natal home and to Parvati as its tutelary goddess, the Ihi ceremony in itself has elements suggesting social integration blurring the central patriarchal order and differentiation of the phuki and its satellite alliances—an order emphasized or taken for granted in other samskara s. Such gestures of blurring of patriarchal order are the joining together m one ceremony of members of different phuki s, thar s, and status levels, the worship of all the city Tantric shrines and all the mandalic^[*]pitha s in concert—in a representation of, among other things, all the city's lineages—and the creation of trans-familial, and sometimes trans-status-level fictive sororal bonds. These gestures are made within the context of a traditional Hindu marriage ceremony. in Michael Allen's epitome, "the mock marriages may be said to constitute a formal show of commitment to orthodoxy in Brahman dominated communities within which key values are still strongly unorthodox—especially as regards the status of women and female sexuality and reproductivity" (1982, 203).

It is usually said that a Hindu boys' transition to full adult "ritual" status begins after Upanayana —which means in Bhaktapur his Kaeta Puja —while a girl's transition begins after her marriage. Thus, for example, in traditional South Asia "the death of a boy after his Upanayana entails full fledged defilement, but a girl before her marriage is still regarded as a child and her death causes defilement for a period of three days only" (Pandey 1969, 258). The transformation made by marriage in a Newar girl's ritual life stage is more complex, for she has two marriages. After the first one, the Ihi , she is still a full member of her natal family, while the second one, her "real" marriage, brings membership in a new, a conjugal family.

In some ways the Ihi ceremony does have the same implications for a girl that the KaetaPuja has for a boy. After her Ihi ceremony, the girl would receive full adult death rites if she were to die. She is now said to belong fully to her thar

and to be responsible for not becoming polluted by sharing vulnerable foods with children of lower thar s and for purificatory cleaning before eating. For middle-level thar s after Ihi a girl is presented to her phuki lineage deity, the Digu God, as a sort of initiation into the phuki at a special ceremony of initiation held at the time of the following Dewali Digu Puja^[31] (chap. 9).

While girls are notionally said to be fully responsible after the Ihi , many of them are still very young, and in fact it is at the time of their menarche ceremony that they are really expected to be able to understand and follow the thar rules for separation and purity, and it is that samskara that signals a girl's passing beyond some aspects, at least, of childish lack of responsibility.

8. Menarche ceremonies: Barha taegu and Barha cwa(n)gu.

The menarche rite differs significantly between those thar s who perform the Ihi ceremony and the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans, who traditionally did not. The contrast illustrates the influence of the mock-marriage on the Newar menarche samskara .

For the Brahmans, marriages were until a few years prior to this study necessarily completed ceremonially before the bride's first menstruation. Although the child bride continued to live in her natal home until after menarche, sometimes well after it, she was brought—usually temporarily, returning to her own home after the rite—to her husband's house in anticipation of the onset of her first menses so that her menarche rite would be held at her husband's home. If menses started unanticipatedly at her natal home. she was immediately brought to her husband's home, her head and face covered with a shawl. For the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans it was in accordance with standard Hindu traditions considered to be a serious violation of the dharma if (1) a girl was not married before menarche and (2) once so married, the married girl's first menstruation took place in her own home. In the Brahmanical (and traditional Hindu) case the menarche samskara , a ceremony lasting for twelve days, took place not only in the husband's home but at the time of actual menstruation.

For all the other thar s, those whose girls had Ihi marriages and who were thus "married" before menarche but who did not have a human husband's home to be brought to, the samskara takes place in the girl's natal household—or in a related phuki household. These ceremonies can be performed at the actual time of a girl's first menstruation—in which case they are called Barha cwa(n)gu , or prior to, often long before, menstruation, as a mock-menarche samskara , the procedure in these latter cases being called Barha taegu .^[32] There are various combinations of Barha taegu and Barha cwa(n)gu procedures. Upper-status thar s usually do a Barha cwa(n)gu , that is, a ceremony at the time of menarche, although this may be a relatively recent change from earlier Barha taegu , premenarche, practices.^[33] Traditionally middle-level thar s, that is, for the most part Jyapus, would link a group of premenarche girls in what was for those girls a Barha taegu to the Barha cwa(n)gu ceremonies for an actually menstruating girl. In recent times, among such middle-level thar s, the connection to actual menstruation has been often ignored and often only premenarche girls participate in a group ceremony. All these arrangements are considered effective menarche ceremonies, in that girls who have a premenarche Barha

taegu samskara will have no further ceremony at the time of their eventual first menstruation.

Traditionally the girls who were to have their Barha taegu had completed their Ihi marriage, and were perhaps seven or eight years of age, although now, it is said, there is some tendency at least for some of the girls to be older. While the Barha cwa(n)gu must be done at the time of actual menstruation, the optional range of timing of the Barha taegu calls for an astrological decision as to the auspicious timing. In contrast to other samskara s, the decision does not determine the sait for some focal action within the ceremony but, in this case, the proper lunar fortnight in which the twelve-day rite should take place.

The menstruating girl, or the group of premenstrual girls (who are usually sisters or girls of the same phuki ) are to be isolated for twelve days in a room in which the windows are covered so that no sunlight will enter.^[34] The Barha taegu girls are dealt with as if they were actually undergoing their first menstruation, that is, as if they were Barha cwa(n)gu girls. During this time the "menstruating girls" must not be seen by males (as the girls are within the house, this taboo primarily concerns male kin and, perhaps, their friends) who are beyond their Kaeta Puja samskara . The sight of the girls is said to be somehow dangerous to them. It was, reportedly, traditionally said that men would turn to ashes and die if they glimpsed the girls, and it is still said that it would, at the least, bring some sort of misfortune to a man who happened to see them. After twelve days of seclusion the girls are brought to the upper open porch, the ka:si , of the house to see and be seen by the sun. It is said that the girls are still full of power at this time, and that only the sun can resist their force, although it is said that, if the day is cloudy, even the sun resists seeing them. The isolation, then, is said to protect men and the sun from seeing the girls—not to protect the girls. During the girls' isolation from men household women enter the girls' room, and girl friends and young female relatives from other houses visit the girls. These visits, during which the girls play and laugh, are particularly important in the Barha cwa(n)gu , as the single girl would otherwise be relatively isolated. The visiting women and girls who are not phuki members are not polluted by these visits—in contrast to the household and phuki members, both male and female, who may share group impurity during this period (see below).

During the first four days the Barha girls have a restricted diet. On the fourth day they have the first of the two ceremonial purifications associated with the samskara . The girls go to the ka:si or cheli (chap. 7) of the house and bathe in a minor purification procedure. This marks the traditional end of actual menstruation. They then return to the room. Now, and for the remaining days, the girls are given rich foods to eat, including milk, meat, and beaten rice. On the fourth day in all thars served by Brahman purohitas the families of the girls send traditional substances—twelve betel nuts, twelve cloves, bhuisiha(n) pigment, rice powder, and mustard oil^[35] —to the family purohita . This is said to be a notification to the purohita that the girl has completed her first menstruation.^[36]

On the twelfth day the confinement ends with the Barha pikaegu , "the taking outside," which is a ceremonial climax of the samskara . On this day, in

preparation, the Nau and Nauni come before sunrise to purify the girls in a house courtyard or on the cheli . Household members are also purified before sunrise but separately from the girls.^[37]

After dawn the purohita does a Kalasa Puja on or near the open porch. The girls, their heads and faces covered with a cloth, are brought by household women to the edge of the puja area, where the purohita sprinkles sacred water and other purifying substances that had been used in the puja on them. The girls are then brought to the ka:si , where the cloths covering their heads are removed so that they can see—and be seen by—the sun (or, on a cloudy day, the sky). The girls' special power/contamination^[38] is now considered to be removed. The girls worship the sun with kiga : m an elementary puja (app. 4). They then do a second puja , this time a formal and elaborate one, to the sun with the help of the purohita , during which they worship the "twelve suns" of the twelve solar months. In the course of this puja the girls make offerings using a conch shell for the first time and will now be able to do so in subsequent worship on other occasions.

After the puja to the sun the household senior woman, the naki(n) , does a ceremonial act that anticipates a similar act occurring toward the end of the sequence of ceremonies in the "true" marriage sequence, and which on that occasion is said to signify that sexual intercourse has begun. This is the sa(n) pyakegu , the hair-parting ceremony. The naki(n) , as will the husband in the marriage ceremony, places a ceremonial cosmetic mixture (rice flour and oil) in the supine hands of each girl. The girls then rub the cosmetic mixture on their faces. The naki(n) then combs each gifts hair and braids it into three plaits, which are then woven together. Then for each girl in turn, the naki(n) places black pigment on the girl's eyelids and puts a spot of decorative bhuisinha(n) pigment on her forehead. Now the naki(n) holds up a mirror so that the girl may see herself, a gesture that has added force in that during the twelve days of seclusion the girls were forbidden to look at their reflections m a mirror.

The sa(n) pyakegu is followed by other pujas and offerings. In contrast to other auspicious samskaras , there is no worship of the mandalic^[*] areal pitha . The ceremony is followed by a small feast for close phuki , affinal, and feminal kin, but there is no large feast for the larger phuki group as there is in many other samskara s. The phuki group in some thars has been polluted during the twelve days. That pollution is lifted at the time of the Barha Pikaegu , without any need for major purification procedures.

This samskara , as the sa(n) pyakegu makes clear, alludes to the traditional implication of the menarche ceremony as a married girl's transition to active sexuality. The delayed true marriage and, also, the inclusion of the Barha taegu preadolescent girls alters this meaning. But the implication of incipient sexual passions, if not active sexuality, is still there.

The Barha Pikaegu , the ceremonial exit from seclusion, represents the reintegration after a period of "liminal" isolation (during which the major danger is to the household males) of the now actually or notionally sexually mature girl with religious and social forms and controls. In the traditional context this all takes place within a girl's husband's family, and represents a significant addi-

tion to her role as the family's daughter-in-law to now also being her husband's sexual partner. All these implications of the menarche ceremony have been transformed for the Newars by the introduction of the Ihi mock-marriage.

9. Marriage: Byaha.

With the "true" marriage we begin the remainder of the sequence of samskara s that are now once again common to males and females.

The complex marriage sequence for the middle and upper thars is a variation of traditional Indian marriage patterns with adjustments made for the mock-marriage. Those Brahmans who do not perform the mock-marriage do not make these adjustments. There has, however, been some shift in recent decades even among non-Brahmans away from the traditional Newar sequence—which was adjusted to the mock-marriage—toward more ordinary South Asian marriage ceremonies.

A complete description of Newar marriage would have to take into account not only first marriages (that is, for the Newars, first "true" marriage) but also secondary marriages. It is only possible here to outline some of the major features of these complex sequences of ceremonies. Many descriptive details for other Newar groups are given in P. H. Bajracharya (1959), Nepali (1965, 198-231), and Toffin (1984, 401-420).

After the preliminary informal decisions about a marriage have been made (chap. 6) the betrothal is formalized in the first ceremonial act of the marriage sequence by a gift of ten betel nuts, gwae(n) ,^[39] and secondary gifts that are presented by the prospective groom's father to the prospective bride's father in a visit to the bride's household. The phuki naki(n) , representing the prospective groom's phuki , accompanies the groom's father. She puts two decorations on the girl's forehead—one a mark of swaga(n) and below it a gold decoration, which often has an image of Narayana^[*] on it. Before these visits the prospective marriage could have been called off by either household without any impropriety, now the betrothal is considered formal and definite.

Sometime during the month prior to the wedding ceremony the prospective groom's family (but not the groom himself) will visit the betrothed girl's household to present gifts. In upper-level thars —and now also in many middle-level ones—this visit is formalized as the "lakha " visit, during which sweetcakes, lakhamari , and other presents are given. The members of the bride's household will eat some of the cakes; after the wedding they will return the remainder, supplemented by presents, to the groom's household. In some upper-level thars other traditional gifts are sent m the course of the month to the prospective bride's household.

In the four days preceding the wedding itself the prospective bride, echoing the visits of her long-ago Ihi marriage, visits the households of her phuki as well as of her mother's brothers, her pajus , where she is given ceremonial foods.

On the day before the wedding ceremony both the bride's and groom's households in middle-level and upper-level thars hold sraddha^[*] ceremonies (see death ceremonies, below) to the lineage ancestors, "notifying" the ancestors of the event. Upper-level thars also worship at their mandalic^[*]pitha .

For Newar Brahmans who do not have Ihi marriages, the core of the true

marriage is the kanya dana , the gift of the virgin girl. This must be done at the bride's home at the proper astrological sait . But among the other thars the kanya dana has already been given in the Ihi ceremony. For these thars the essential act of marriage union, which must be done at the auspicious sait , is a ceremony done at the groom's home, a ceremony called ho(n)kegu , "causing to be joined together." Among some families in recent years an additional South Asian marriage custom that did not exist among the Newars of Bhaktapur in previous decades has been adopted by some upper-status families and those Jyapu families who now emulate them. This is the swayambar (Sanskrit svayamvara^[*] ), in which—again at the proper astrological sait —the bride is ceremonially given to the groom at the bride's household in a first phase of the marriage on the evening of the day preceding the ho(n)kegu . The traditional absence of the swayambar ceremony among the Newars is sometimes speculatively explained as not being necessary because "the girl was already married," that is, she has already been given away by her natal household. Several of the ceremonial acts in the Ihi ceremony, in fact, are versions of acts that are done among Indo-Nepalese (and traditionally in South Asia) in the course of the swayambar .^[40]

In the traditional Newar sequence there is a ceremony at the prospective bride's household on the evening before the wedding. The groom's father and other representatives of his family, but not the prospective groom himself, attend the ceremony. The prospective bride presents sets of ten betel nuts, first to the family purohita , then to senior members of the household, and then to other assembled relatives and household members^[41] with the exception of her mother and father. After the bride has presented the betel nuts the household or phuki senior woman (other than her mother) decorates the bride and gives her offerings. Now her father presents her with a ceremonial mirror, a jyalanheka(n) , and she, in return, gives him a set of betel nuts. Her mother then gives her an ornate container for ceremonial pigment, a sinhamu , and the daughter, m return, gives ten betel nuts to her mother. The girl now takes pigment from the sinhamu and applies it to her own forehead. In some families at this point the groom's father places an anklet on each of the bride's legs. He must bend down and touch her feet to do it, reversing the usual action of respect of child to parent and, even more poignantly perhaps, bride to parent-in-law. Finally her mother's brother, the bride's paju , takes her on his back and carries her out of the house to the pikha lakhu of the house, its symbolic outer boundary, where he delivers her to the groom's representatives. In the past she was then taken—covered over and hidden from view—in a carrying sling carried by men from the Gatha thar .^[42] A procession is formed. Musicians come first, then the bride, next people carrying her dowry, and finally the representative of the groom's family. The bride is taken first to the neighborhood Ganesa^[*] shrine, and (if carried) carried three times around it. Her family members have followed. Now there is a formalized exchange between representatives of the two households, in which the representative of the groom's family is asked to promise to take care of the new bride. Her family now leaves her and returns to the household.

The groom's representatives and the bride now proceed to the groom's household. The bride is met at the house pikha lakhu by the phuki or household naki(n) and is ceremonially "taken in" (du kaegu ) to the house in a ceremony in

which evil forces and spirits are driven from the new bride.^[43] The bride has had her head and face covered with a shawl since she left her parents' home, and it is still covered. On entering the house the women of the household may look under the shawl to see her face^[44] and will talk with her informally.

The next step is the actual marriage ritual, the ho(n)kegu . At the proper sait the bride, holding ten betel nuts and a garland, circumambulates the groom and presents him first with the garland and then the betel nuts. The transfer of the betel nuts is the focal moment of marriage. The groom then presents traditional presents to the bride. She then gives a set of ten betel nuts to each of the ritually adult members of the groom's household and to his family purohita . She is introduced to each of these, and bows to their feet as she presents the nuts. Each family member puts small coins in a dish kept near the bride in exchange for her presentation to them. The bride bows to each member superior in status to her, but those of inferior status^[45] bow to her. All this is done under the directions of the purohita .^[46] Throughout the ho(n)kegu he directs the actions of others and makes some offerings to the bride and groom, but he does not conduct a puja or perform formal worship to deities himself.

Now the naki(n) places a Swaga(n) sinha(n) mark on the bride's forehead and gives her presents of clothes. The naki(n) then gives the bride and groom water for washing their hands and purifying their mouths. According to various reports, in Newar marriages in other Valley cities and towns the bride and groom now take food offerings from a common metal dish—a thae(n) bhu —signaling through the eating of each other's cipa , a nonhierarchical sharing of substance. In the upper-level thars in Bhaktapur (and among those other thars that emulate them), however, two thae(n) bhu are used, as it is said that because the bride is no longer a kanya and has menstruated it is not proper for her husband to eat from her dish.^[47] The food in the two dishes and the sequence of eating is ascribed complex symbolism, and is associated with offerings and worship to the sun and the collective deities. After these offerings have been made the groom eats half of a hard-boiled egg and gives the other half to the bride. He does the same thing with a portion of fish and of meat that he has tasted and (in most families) of alcoholic spirits that he has previously sipped. The groom puts food into the bride's hands, and sometimes (often in response to joking requests from the onlookers) puts food directly into her mouth. The active feeding has overtones of erotic play and female receptivity and intimacy, as well as indicating the bride's subordinate and dependent status signaled by her sharing in the groom's cipa , that is, in his substance (chap. 11). The ho(n)kegu concludes with other ceremonial actions. The focal and essential elements in the ho(n)kegu are the bride's giving of betel nuts to the groom and her eating of his cipa . These are found m the variations of the ceremony among various thars . Thus the Jyapu ceremonies, which may dispense with most of the features of the upper-status ho(n)kegu , keep these two elements.

Following the ho(n)kegu the groom and males of the phuki go to the mandalic^[*] pitha with an Acaju for worship to the Mandalic^[*] Goddess. In the evening there is a large feast in the groom's household and family and friends of the household come to "see the bride."

There are various activities which may follow in the days after the wedding.

In Brahman and some upper-status non-Brahman families the bride will be brought to the groom's Digu God shrine and presented to that lineage deity a few days after the wedding. In families at most status levels, however, the new bride will be brought to the Digu God shrine for the first time during the phuki 's collective worship to the Digu God during the next Dewali period.

Usually within four days after the wedding members of the bride's family come to "see their daughter's face" in a visit to the groom's house. They bring gifts, including clothes and, perhaps, money. In the presence of women from the groom's household who offer them sweets and other hospitality, the members of the bride's family present the gifts and decorations of swaga(n) to the bride. After this visit the bride's family may conduct her hack to her natal home, where other members of her own family and friends and neighbors visit. The bride's family may now send a representative to invite the groom to visit his new wife's natal home. The groom returns to the bride's house accompanied by a friend (rarely a phuki member). The bride's mother or the household naki(n) gives gifts of clothes and decorations of swaga(n) to the couple. The husband, the wife's household's new jica bhaju , is introduced to the assembled guests and household members, traditionally meeting the family for the first time. At each introduction to household members and other relatives the husband presents a gift of ten betel nuts, and they, in return, make an offering of money to the couple. There are other ceremonial offerings and exchanges, and then a feast, during which there may be some teasing of the couple, and some mild practical jokes may be played on the jica bhaju .^[48]

Now the husband, his accompanying friend, and the wife return to the husband's house, often led by someone (traditionally for the upper thars, a jyapu with a client relationship to the husband's household) carrying a very large and ornate oil lamp, a "marriage sukunda ."^[49]

10. Tantric initiation: Dekha.

The initiation (Dekha or Diksa ) of upper-status males into their phuki 's Aga(n) God worship (chap. 9) is sometimes considered as a Newar samskara .

11. Old-age ceremonies: Buraburi ja(n)ko.

Another set of samskara s that are not done by the Indo-Nepalese and are thus identified as Newar samskara s are the old-age ceremonies called the Buraburi ja(n)ko .^[50] They are done by lower-middle-level, middle-level, and upper-level thars . These are first celebrated by a married couple when the husband reaches the age of "seventy-seven years, seven months, seven days, seven ghaus and seven palas ."^[51] If a man or woman is widowed, the ja(n)ko takes place when he or she^[52] has reached that age. There are preliminary phases of purification and other preparatory ceremonies that may, for the upper-level thars , be elaborate, lasting for several days and requiring the work of several priests. The core of the ceremony comes when the couple (or the widow or widower) dressed in "royal" clothes (the man wearing a turban) enter a small chariot at the proper astrological sait and are pulled by their children and grandchildren around the courtyard adjoining the house. Sometimes the chariot is pulled around the twa :. The ceremony, called the "Bhima ratharohan ," the Bhima chariot ride, takes its name from this epi-

sode. When the chariot ride is finished, the couple leave the chariot and family members and friends make offerings to them, take prasada from them, wash, and bow down to their feet. All this treats the man and woman not only as royalty but as gods. They are considered as quasi-divine after the ceremony—progressively so if they live to undergo the subsequent ones—and this divinity is ideally associated with the relinquishing of active control over family affairs. Three more ceremonies, all making use of a chariot, may follow, one at the age of eighty-one years (at which time it is said that a person has seen the full moon 1,000 times) one at eighty-eight years, eight months, eight days, eight ghaus and eight palas , and again at ninety-two years. These three ja(n)kos are called, respectively the Candra, Deva, and Maha Ratharohans .

These ja(n)kos progressively move individuals out of ordinary social "per-sonhood," allowing others in the family to assume positions of authority, while compensating the old people with an increased ceremonial status. The ceremonies may also be thought of, in part, as a disentanglement from ordinary life in a preparation for dying and death, a preparation that culminates in the procedures immediately prior to death.

12. Dying and cremation.

The ceremonial aspects of dying and the subsequent cremation is considered the last of the samskara s. There are a long set of rituals following death that are not considered to be samskara s. The sequence of ceremonies associated with dying and death are very elaborate, are related to various and sometimes contradictory doctrines about the fate of the soul after death, and vary somewhat in extent and detail among different thars . These ceremonies are closely related to other South Asian death practices, and we will treat them in a somewhat summary way here.^[53]

Dying.

Among middle and upper thars when an individual is thought to be in danger of dying, various ceremonies may be performed. These include dana , offerings, sometimes very substantial ones, to a Brahman. These ceremonies and their accompanying offerings are made in the hope of healing or, if that fails, of facilitating dying and the fate of the individual after death.

When death is considered to be imminent, the dying person and his or her family have an option as to where the death will take place. This should be either on the cheli , the ground floor of the house (considered for this and other purposes to be outside the house), or at one of the sets of steps, ghats , descending into the river.^[54] It is said that most people prefer to die on the cheli of their own home, and that the great majority do so. An Ayurvedic physician is often in attendance, and when he decides that death is imminent, an area purified with cow dung and scattered with black barley grain is prepared. The dying person is placed on the purified area with his or her head facing toward the south, the direction of Yama's kingdom. Shoots of certain plants (tulasi , a variety of basil, and kusa [Sanskrit kusa ] grass, Demostachya bipinnata ) are placed under the body.

There is an emphasis on Visnu/Narayana^[*] at the time of dying.^[55] The tulasi leaves placed under the person's body represent him.^[56] Water touched to a salagrama , a representation of Visnu^[*] , is flicked into the dying person's mouth.

He or she is reminded (and this is done even if the person appears to be unconscious) to repeat the name of Narayana^[*] over and over again.

If the person is dying at home, a vessel containing pure water, representing a tirtha , an area usually associated with a river or other body of water that has power to give merit, is placed near his or her feet. At what is presumed to be the moment of death, an attendant splashes water from the bowl on the person's feet, which may also be placed into the bowl. Some of the water is also poured into his or her umbilicus. When someone dies at the river, the feet, or sometimes the entire lower half of the body, may be plunged into the river. This act, represented during dying at home by the action with the "tirtha water," is said to be to prevent the vital principle, the prana , which leaves the body at the moment of death, from leaving it inauspiciously through one of its lower openings.^[57]

Preparation of the body.

After death the body is prepared for cremation. (If the person has died at the river, the body is brought first to the top of the ghat^[*] .) The body is prepared by phuki members and members of the death guthi —an association of fellow thar members who will assist the family of the dead person with the subsequent stages of preparation, funeral procession, and cremation (see Toffin 1975b ). The corpse's eyes are closed, its clothes removed, and the body washed. A piece of clay from the river is placed as a ceremonial mark, a tirtha si(n)ha , on the corpse's forehead. The individual's birth horoscope, or jata :, which was prepared at the time of the Namkarana^[*] samskara , is placed on his or her forehead and fastened with a thread. The corpse's genitals are covered with a white cloth, which will be left in place during the subsequent cremation, when all other coverings are removed from the body. Four small clay dishes, containing oil and burning wicks, are placed at the body's right and left shoulders, head and feet. The body is now covered by two additional white cloths—one covers it from the waist to the neck, and the other is placed over the head and tied under the chin, leaving the face exposed. A burning wick from the dish at the corpse's head is given to a member of the Cala(n) thar (level XIII; see chap. 5), who uses it to light a twisted oil-soaked cloth supported in a bowl of oil to make a flaming torch that he will carry in the funeral procession, which is about to begin.

The clothes worn at the time of death (or under some conditions other clothes that had belonged to the person) are brought to the neighborhood crossroads chwasa . A member of the Jugi thar who has a traditional client relationship with the family and who will be used again during the mourning ceremonies of the fifth or seventh day after death, is notified, and then expected to go to the chwasa and take the clothes "for his own use."^[58]

The funeral procession.

The body is now lifted by members of the death guthi and carried to the pikha lakhu boundary stone in front of the front door of the house. A bamboo carrier for the body, a kuta :, has been placed there, and covered with a woven reed mat, a pulu . The body is placed on the pulu , and the pulu is folded to wrap and enclose the body. Finally a colored cloth is placed over the pulu , and garlands of flowers and uncolored popped rice are placed on the cloth.

The kuta : is carried by four guthi members. The procession is headed by a

member of the guthi who throws unhusked rice and small coins along the road, in a procedure that mimics the jatra of a deity being carried m a procession in order to be housed for the first time in a temple, the corpse being likened to the god and the afterworld to the temple. Following the leader of the procession is the Cala(n) carrying the flaming torch in one hand, and a pair of small cymbals in the other, which he clangs together as he approaches each road crossing the funeral route to prevent anyone crossing in front of the funeral procession, which would be an ill omen for all concerned. Following the Cala(n) is the litter of the corpse, followed, in turn, by the chief mourner, ideally the eldest son of a man, or among some thars the youngest adult son of a woman. The chief mourner, generally referred to by the Sanskrit term "kriya putra ," "the son who does the [death-related ceremonial] work," is called at this stage the "fire setter," the one who will ignite the funeral pyre. Wearing only a loincloth (for the upper thars the traditional South Asian loincloth, the dhoti ), with his upper body naked, he walks with the support of two helpers who are client Jyapus for the upper thars , or friends or neighbors for the middle or lower ones. The kriya putra is followed by male phuki members, neighbors, friends, and affinal male relatives.^[59] The body is carried along the twa :’s traditional route to the particular cremation ground, where it is to be burned (chap. 7).

The cremation.

When the cremation ground is reached, the activities preliminary to the cremation itself are begun. This phase of events is called the liko kriya , "the [death] work done at the feet." For the upper thars a member of the Cyo thar (level XI) acts as, it is said, "a sort of a priest" to direct the activities during the liko kriya . For the other thars the work is directed by a phuki or death guthi member. The kuta : is placed on the ground so that the head of the corpse is to the south. A paste made of water and ma baji —fragments that are residues of the beating of fried rice to make baji , and which is used only on this occasion—is formed into three mounds at the feet of the body by the kriya putra , who, faring the body, kneels to its feet. The three mounds are considered to be sacrificial offerings, bali , to, respectively, crows (the mound to the left), to the preta (the spirit form that the soul of the dead person will take; the mound at the center), and to dogs (the mound to the right). The crow and the dog are considered as representatives or messengers of Yama, and are so represented in later death ceremonies. Now, as part of the offering, water is poured near each of the three mounds.

Four clumps of grass with soil still clinging to the roots are placed at the borders of the area on the cremation ground where the funeral pyre is to be erected. They are arranged so as to be at the head, feet, and right and left shoulders of the body, as the clay oil lamps had been at the time of death. The funeral pyre is assembled by the death guthi members. The cremation is considered by Brahmans to be a "Vedic fire sacrifice," a yajna^[*] . The four clumps of grass and earth are said to represent the four Vedas. When the pyre is completed the kuta : is lifted and carried three times around it. The pulu and the cloths covering the body (except for the cloth covering the genitals) are removed, and the body is removed from the kuta :, placed on the funeral pyre, and covered with dry straw. Now the chief mourner takes a torch and, igniting it from the

flame of the torch held by the Cala(n), circumambulates the body three times. An inflammable mixture of sandalwood, camphor, and clarified butter is placed at the corpse's mouth, and it is here that the kriya putra applies the flame to begin the cremation. Now a bundle of straw is ignited at the flames at the mouth and then used to set fire to the pyre itself.

As the pyre and corpse burn, the climactic moment comes with the cracking of the head of the corpse, at which time the soul of the corpse leaves in the form of a preta to begin its postmortem journey and transformations.^[60] The kriya putra throws offerings (which may include barley, parched rice, kiga :, clarified butter, and leaves of the Ficus religiosa ) into the fire at the time of the cracking of the skull.^[61] When the body has been reduced to ashes and bone fragments, the fire is extinguished. The ashes and bone fragments are brought to a tirtha in the river near the cremation grounds. The kriya putra enters the water and throws some of the ashes in the four cardinal directions. He then puts some of the ashes and bone from the head into the clay soil at the river bottom.

The return to the house.

The men now return to the house where the procession had begun. A Po(n) will go to the cremation grounds to take the funeral cloths and mat and the kuta :.

The women of the household have remained at home during the procession and cremation. If a dead man leaves a widow, she breaks her bangles and they will be thrown away at the neighborhood chwasa . Women who are related to the family begin to come to the house at this time, as they will throughout the succeeding period of mourning, and conventionally begin to wail loudly as they approach the house.^[62]

The members of the funeral procession return to the house, where the family members enter the upper floors. The kriya putra cannot enter the house. He goes to the cheli , the ground floor, which is in such situations considered to be outside of the house.^[63] He will remain there during the following period of mourning.

The activities of the mourning period.

The cremation is considered the last of the samskara s. What now follows continues the effect of the samskara s in effecting and signaling an individual's movement from one culturally defined stage of being to another, but now the locus of the individual's life, now his or her life in death, is removed progressively further and further from house, household, and city.

Following the cremation there is an elaborate cycle of postdeath ceremonies and procedures. Those taking place in the ten days immediately following the death and ending when the family is purified of its postdeath pollution are called the dasa kriya , the "ten works."^[64] In the subsequent months and years there is another series of special ceremonies on various anniversaries of the death, as well as the special observances incumbent on or optional for bereaved people during the course of the festival year, which we have noted in our discussions of the annual cycle. We will only outline these ceremonies here, noting some details that bear on other aspects of this study.

The dasa kriya period revolves around the activities of the kriya putra and the evolution of the spirit of the deceased person. The kriya putra remains on the cheli alone or, sometimes, accompanied by a male member of the household. During this period the kriya putra wears only a loincloth, wrapping himself in a shawl if it is cold, cooks his own food, sleeps on a straw or wool mat on the ground, and does not shave. He is unable to touch anyone except the man who may keep him company, and is thus even more polluted than the household and phuki members who also have been polluted by the death.

On each day of the mourning period the kriya putra boils rice at home and carries it to the river, taking care not to touch anyone. In upper-level thars the kriya putra is accompanied in his trips to the river by a man from the borderline clean Bha thar who will later, on the tenth day, consume rice that has been in contact with the corpse to ensure that the spirit will take a human form (chap. 10). The Bha carries flowers, colored pigment, and other materials that are to be used in worship. The Bha is also supposed to instruct the kriya putra at the riverside in the proper steps of the worship.^[65] The Bha makes a linga^[*] out of a kind of clay that comes from some distance below the earth to represent Siva as the deity "Hatakesvara^[*] ,"^[66] a god said to dwell under the earth. Offerings of milk and water are poured into small terracotta dishes placed on either side of the linga^[*] . A clay waterpot with a hole in the bottom is placed on a tripod over the linga^[*] and an "umbrella" formed from kusa grass is placed in the pot. Each morning the kriya putra takes river water and puts it into the clay pot, where it slowly drips through the hole onto the linga^[*] . It is said that the Siva linga^[*] represents the deceased person. The water is said to cool the spirit of the dead person, which is in its preta form.^[67] Now the kriya putra forms the rice into three bails—called pya(n) in Newari or pinda^[*] in Sanskrit^[68] —as offerings to (in the following order) the crow, the dog, and, finally, the preta . The pinda^[*] offered to the preta is both an offering to and a representation of the dead person, as is the case with pindas^[*] in all the subsequent death ceremonies.^[69] The three pindas^[*] are then given various offerings. Finally, the kriya putra throws the crow pinda^[*] across the river as food for the crows, puts the dog pinda^[*] on the near river bank as food for the dogs, and throws the preta pinda^[*] onto the mud in the center of the river (if the river is low as it is during much of the year), where it is supposed to be picked up and supposedly eaten by the same Po(n) who was also responsible for taking the funeral cloths from the cremation grounds.

The kriya putra then returns to his home. He cooks his own food, restricting himself to one meal a day. He is supposed to spend his time there reading sections of the Garuda^[*] Purana^[*] dealing with life after death.

On the fourth day of the mourning period close friends, relatives, and members of the death guthi come to the cheli to talk with the kriya putra .^[70] A focal day in the course of the dasa kriya is, depending on the thar , the fifth or seventh day.^[71] On this day a married-out daughter of the household (or, if there is none, of the phuki ) returns to the house, and goes to the cheli , where she boils rice. She forms the rice into three portions, and places them in three bamboo baskets. Two of the portions are simply lumps (in contrast to the variously shaped pinda^[*] ), but the third is often formed into the shape of a body. This third por-

tion is given to a Jugi who will come to the house on this day, the same Jugi who earlier gathered the death clothes at the chwasa . This offering is called the "giving of the fifth-day (or seventh-day) body." The three portions of rice are offerings, but the portion offered to the Jugi, which is called the preta bali , the preta sacrificial offering, also represents the preta itself. The Jugi's act might be thought to represent an agent in the forming of the preta's body, as are in that case explicitly, the activities of the Bha on the tenth day after death. One of the other two portions is brought by the daughter to the riverside, where it is left as an offering to the crows. Late at night the third portion, called the pakha ja , or the "boiled rice of the roof eaves,"^[72] is brought from the cheli and placed outside of the house at the pikha lakhu boundary. It is left there for a while, sometimes only a few minutes, and sometimes throughout the night. It is said that the hungry preta is waiting outside the house to be fed. Household members keep watch in order to prevent dogs from disturbing the rice. Then, in a further distancing movement, the pakha ja is brought to the river—for upper-status thars by a Jyapu client—and thrown into it.

The kriya putra continues his daily dasa kriya activities on the fifth or seventh day, and on the following days. On the tenth day following the cremation a ceremony is held at the riverbank, an elaboration of the kriya putra's daily morning offering. The ceremony, which includes offerings of food and drink to the spirit and the construction of pindas^[*] , is the first of a long series of such ceremonies called sraddhas ,^[73] rites characterized by offerings and the making of pindas^[*] .^[74] For the upper-level thars the Bha who has attended the kriya putra on each morning is again present to help prepare and (traditionally) to direct the offerings. All members of the phuki are supposed to attend this tenth-day sraddha^[*] .

Now, in part because of the successful performance of the dasa kriya , the spirit of the dead person is said to have its full human form, and to be no longer a preta .^[75] The purification procedures that terminate the period of the dasa kriya begin at this point. These purifications are called du bya(n)nkegu , the "du " purification.^[76] At least one man and woman representing each of the phuki households is supposed to come to the river for purification. After they have all purified themselves, the kriya putra , finally, does his own purification. Other members of the phuki will be purified at home or at the house of a Nau.

After the du bya(n)kegu at the river there is a ceremony during which the kriya putra , facing west toward the setting sun, makes an offering of water and guta grass (Cynodon dactylon ) to the sun. The kriya putra's purohita stands in front of him, and thus also, to his west, and the kriya putra circumambulates him three times, "being careful not to step on the purohita's shadow." A Nau stands near by with a ceremonial mirror. He hands it to the purohita , bowing in respect, and the purohita presents it to the kriya putra , who shows the mirror to the sun, and then looks into it at himself.^[77] The other phuki members now worship the sun. Now, having become purified and having worshiped the sun, they will be able to worship (but still not touch until the time of the still-to-come sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] ) other deities.^[78] Now the purohita hands the kriya putra a set of white mourning clothes that he will wear during the following year until the first annual anniversary of the death.^[79]

At sunset on this tenth day, the du bya(n)nkegu purification having been completed earlier in the day, the kriya putrs accompanied by two or three phuki members goes to the river. They place on the riverbank on the river's far side, fragments of beaten rice (the same material that was offered to the preta just prior to cremation), two oil-lamp wicks, and some sprigs of kusa . These are offerings to the dead person who is now beginning a journey to the realm of Yama, where his or her karma -based post-death transformation will be effected. On the fifth or seventh day after death the preta had been given offerings in the cremation grounds, outside the house, and at the near bank of the river. It now moves still further off in its more human, less uncanny, ethereally embodied state.

After the river offerings have been made, substantial gifts^[80] are given to the Bha. These include the item of food that he is to eat that will aid the human formation of the spirit's ethereal and, in some accounts, its eventually reincarnated body.

Death related activities following the dasa kriya mourning period.

There will be further offerings to the humanoid spirit in the next few days, and the house itself must be further cleansed of its death pollution. During the year following a death, men who have lost a parent will wear white and will not wear leather shoes or belts. If a mother is lost, men are not supposed to drink milk for one year; if it is a father, they are nor supposed to eat curds.^[81] If a male phuki member other than a man's father dies, men are supposed to wear a white cap for forty-five days; if it ,s a female household member other than a man's mother, the household men are supposed to wear white caps until the twelfth day after the death.^[82]

The end of the ten-day mourning period is the beginning of a long series of sraddha^[*] ceremonies, centering on offerings to the spirit, whose condition is now variously understood. The exact number, timing, and details of procedures vary according to the level and Brahmanical orthodoxy of various thars .^[83] Some of these are considered to be of predominant importance, and thus are more generally done. These are the ceremonies of the eleventh, twelfth,^[84] and thirteenth days, the forty-fifth day, the sixth month, the first yearly anniversary of the death, and each subsequent yearly anniversary of the death. In the same way as the events of the dasa kriya period helped form the preta's body, the sraddha^[*] ceremonies of the first year aid the formed spirit's movement through its ensuing adventures.

On the eleventh day after death there is a ceremony called swama lhuyegu , the "washing away of sorrow." Males of the household and of the phuki go to the river, where the kriya putra offers a single pinda^[*][85] made of wheat flour, to which other substances are added, to the dead person. Although the sprit is supposed to be in its human form by this day, this offering is still called a preta pinda^[*] , and this procedure is a kind of redundant coda to the dasa kriya . The pindas^[*] formed on the next, the twelfth (or for many thars the forty-fifth) day will have a different name and significance, and the ceremonies associated with them will be within the dry.

In this eleventh-day ceremony the kriya putra , facing south, worships an oil

lamp said to represent the deity "Siddhikesvara." in the course of the worship the preta pinda^[*] made by the kriya putra is worshiped and given offerings including flowers, cloths, sinha(n) powder, fruits, incense, and an oil wick. When the puja is finished, the kriya putra places the pinda^[*] on a patch of exposed soil in the river, whence a Po(n) is supposed to come and take it. Now the attending family and phuki members wash in the river. Then in an act of purification the family purohita sprinkles water and milk, which had first been poured over a Siva linga^[*] , on each person in turn, starting with the phuki naya : and ending with the kriya putra . The kriya putra takes water of high purity, Ga(n)ga jal , and parities the area where the daily morning dasa kriya worship had taken place. The men now return to the kriya putra's house on the path he had used each day during the dasa kriya . As they go, the kriya putra sprinkles Ga(n)ga jal along the path. On reaching his house he walks around it, continuing to sprinkle the water.

These acts of purification of the residues of the death are followed later in this day or on the next, the twelfth day,^[86] by another important act of purification called the gha:su yajña^[87] or, in ordinary Newar reference, the lha panegu , "hand drying." The gha:su yajña is done among the upper-level thars in Bhaktapur by a special class of priests, the Tini (chap. 10).^[88] Lower thars perform this ceremony with the aid of a daughter who had married out of the house (and whose household had thus not been contaminated by the death), who returns to the household to light the fire, and so now do many upper-level families because of a shortage of Tini priests in Bhaktapur in recent years.

In the course of this ceremony the Tim performs a simplified fire sacrifice, or yajña , on the cheli of the house, in the course of which, in contrast to ordinary fire sacrifices, a meat-containing offer of samhae is made. The focal deity of the offering is Siva.^[89] People of the household, joined by a man or woman representing each of the phuki families, hold their hands toward the fire—the act of lha panegu itself. The fire, or its smoke, is thought to purify them and—through the medium of the representative—each of their households. The smoke of the fire moves up through the kriya putra's house, thus purifying it of dangerous influences.^[90]

Brahman households, and a few upper-level Chathariya households, perform a complex set of additional ceremonies on this day. These are thought to be "Vedic" ceremonies, and include a fire ceremony, offerings of the five auspicious products of the cow, and a Vrsotsarga^[*] ceremony, the setting of a cow and a bull "free to roam." These ceremonies are thought to enhance the dead person's chances of going to a "good place" after reaching Yama's realm.

If there is time on the eleventh day, and if not, then on the twelfth day, a ceremony called an apadutaegu will be done. An apa is a small clay waterpot with a spout.^[91] In the course of the ceremony five or (for upper-level thars ) seven apas are made use of. One, dedicated to Surya, is placed in the sunlight; one in the neighborhood Ganesa^[*] temple; one at a nearby well; one, dedicated to Siva, at the side of the river; and one within the house. Upper-level thars place two additional apas , one at their Aga(n) House, and one "dedicated to all the deifies" outside of their houses in the courtyard of the house.

During the apadutaegu fourteen preta pindas^[*] are made. These fourteen pindas^[*] are conceptually grouped with the preta pinda^[*] made on the eleventh day, and with one that will be made during the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] (which will be held later either on this day or else on the forty-fifth day) as a set of sixteen preta pindas^[*] . The sixteen preta pindas^[*] are said to make a full body for the deceased person's preta , the body being completed with the making of the last pinda^[*] during the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] . The preta pindas^[*] are also said to represent the stage of the journey of the preta , a journey that in one sense or version ends at the time of the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] when the preta's body is complete and—no longer a preta as it is now in its ethereally embodied form—joins with the pitrs^[*] , the "ancestors." While these ideas are not consistent with the doctrine that this formation had been completed during the dasa kriya period, they reflect not only some general inconsistency in doctrines about details of postmortem happenings but also, perhaps, an effort to ensure that the formation and progress of the spirit be in accord with all the various ambient doctrines about the spirit's whereabouts, forms, and tasks.

The work of the first twelve days is said to summarize what was in some distant past a full year of death work, during which the kriya putra had to remain on the cheli and perform mourning ceremonies. Each day in this view represents a month.

The essential ceremony of the twelfth or forty-fifth day^[92] is the sapinda sraddha^[*] . "Sapinda^[*] " refers to a group of living and dead kin who are thought to share the same body (pinda^[*] ) or body particles.^[93] The "sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] " is a variant of the traditional South Asian sapindikarana^[*] sraddha^[*] ceremony (cf. Kane 1968-1977). This is the time when, in one of the parallel conceptions of the fate of the soul, the soul changes from its preta form and enters into the community of the pitrs^[*] , the "fathers" or "ancestors." In the course of the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] a pinda^[*] representing the dead person—a pinda^[*] considered still to be a preta pinda^[*] , the final one in the series of death ceremonies—is, in the course of an elaborate and largely traditional ceremony, physically joined with three pinda^[*] s representing the ancestors of three ascending generations.^[94] This represents the transformation of the preta not only into an embodied spirit but also into an ancestor—the spirit of the deceased person having now reached the pitr^[*] loka , the realm of the ancestors.^[95] The sraddha^[*] ceremonies that will follow the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] during the first year also represent a journey, the journey of the soul now in its ethereal body, its second, "bhogadeha, " form, toward Yama's realm.

The timing of the subsequent sraddha^[*] ceremonies depends on when the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] had been done. When it is done on the twelfth day, it is followed by another sraddha^[*] ceremony on the thirteenth day, and then subsequent ones at one month, forty-five days, six months and one year after the death.^[96] For those who do the sapinda^[*] sraddha^[*] on the forty-fifth day, the sequence of subsequent sraddhas begin with the sixth-month ceremony.

The spirit's journey to Yama's realm continues during the first year. In the ceremonies of the annual Saparu festival [45] activities by the community and the relatives of the deceased person help the spirit to cross over the river bounding that kingdom on its eventual arrival there. Finally, safely arrived in King

Yama's realm, the person's fate will be announced, the reward or punishment not only for his or her own moral and ritual actions during this and previous lives but, in a somewhat uneasy relationship to this idea, also for the adequacy of the enormous ritual efforts of kriya putra , household, extended family, and the people of Bhaktapur.