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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.


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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,


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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]


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