Purification

The third aspect of the management of pollution is its removal once it has accumulated. Here the major emphasis is not on the management of the flow or ingestion of some sort of substance but on mechanical pro-

cedures for the removal of dirt from surfaces and, in more extensive personal purifying procedures, the trimming of hair and/or nails. These procedures are extensions of the ordinary cleaning of foodstuffs, cooking utensils, living and dining quarters, clothes, and the body. For inanimate objects, water collected to ensure its purity, ashes, mixtures of cow dung and soil, and so on may be used following traditional prescriptions.^[15] Such ordinary cleaning and scrubbing becomes loosely formalized into sets of procedures of various potency. The proper procedures are generally understood by ordinary people for most occasions, with the occasional advice of a Brahman. They depend on status, the kind of pollution undergone, and the goal of the purification (e.g., primarily for the removal of a pollution to restore ordinary purity, or for the removal of ordinary purity to prepare for a ritual, or the removal of asauca impurity). Thus such purifications must be done in particular ways, and their neglect, like the neglect of any aspect of the dharma of ordinary life, is a moral violation, a papa .^[16]

Formalized procedures for purification of the body are called bya(n)kegu —alternatively written be(n)kegu —meaning literally "to cause to become untied" and thus to become loosened or freed. The term is not used for the purification of objects nor of ritual equipment or areas, where the ordinary Newari term for "to clean or to arrange neatly," "sapha yagu ," is used. "Bya(n)kegu " is generally divided into two kinds, which Brahmans sometimes distinguish as "ordinary" (sadharan ) or "special, important" (visesya^[*] ). For the latter group of bya(n)kegu , the unequivocally clean thar s, that is, those above level XIII, require the services of a man (nau ) and woman (nauni ) from the Nau, or "barber" thar .^[17]

In the usual course of events the main motivation for a major purification is after death in the phuki in all thar s, and after birth within the phuki for high-status groups—low-status groups performing only an ordinary bya(n)kegu . Major purification was traditionally required by the highest status thar s in preparation for all major puja s and for all rites of passage for family members, but in recent decades minor bya(n)kegu procedures have been used for most of these. In addition, Brahmans and devout upper-status Chathariyas purified themselves with major purifications following contaminating contacts with low thar s. For lower-status thar s such purifications were perfunctory.

For an ordinary or minor bya(n)kegu there are three common procedures used in Bhaktapur. One is bathing in or at the edge of the river with river water, in the course of which a person first washes his or her

feet, and then hands, then rinses the mouth and spits out the water, then washes the face, and finally washes the whole body or submerges it into the water. Another procedure is to use khau , mustard seed from which the oil has first been pressed. Khau can be used with nonriver water taken from wells or taps. Water is first used to clean sequentially the feet, hands, mouth, and face. Then khau is rubbed on the feet, the hands, the face, and then the rest of the body. Finally the body is rinsed with water again. A third procedure is to take tulsica , the earth (ca ) from around a basil plant (Ocimum sanctum ), tulsi ,^[18] and use it in the same way as khau is used.

In a major bya(n)kegu extra procedures are added to the basic washing and scrubbing activities that characterize all purifications from dirty pollution. For such procedures a nau and a nauni come to the house of the person or (as is usually the case) persons who are to undergo the purification. Occasionally people may go to the workplace or house of the nau . In a client's house the purification procedure is done on the cwata or mata(n) floor. In the case of a man, "new water," na:na ,^[19] is used to wet his head, which is then shaved.^[20] The nauni pares his toe and finger nails, and colors the tips of his toes with a red pigment, ala :. For women there is no hair cutting; the major bya(n)kegu consists only of having their nails pared by the nauni , and the ends of their toes painted with ala :, which is applied more extensively than for men. Unmarried women may have a wider area of the tops of their feet adjacent to their toes painted, a procedure that is interpreted as cosmetic as well as purificatory. The cut-off hair and nails are supposed to be thrown into the river,^[21] but they are often disposed of as ordinary waste. Following these pocedures by the nau and the nauni , the person must wash in the river or clean himself or herself with khua or tulsica in the manner of an ordinary bya(n)kegu .^[22] The entire procedure—the services of the nau and nauni , followed by the prescribed washing and cleaning—constitutes the major bya(n)kegu . These simple procedures are sufficient to remove dirty pollution.^[23]