but when it was found that on this account the native soldiers refused to have their hair cut, it was no longer adopted. From some of the above customs originated the tonsure, that designated the clerical or monastic state among Christians. In the early church, male penitents were required to cut off their hair and shave their beards, in token of contrition; and females had to appear with their hair in disorder. But the old ecclesiastical rules expressly enjoined the clergy (Constit. Apost. lib. i. c. 3) to wear their hair and beards long.* It is said by Alban Butler (Oct. 12) that the tonsure was introduced in the fourth or fifth century, after the persecutions had ceased. The first locks were sometimes cut off by the king or some other great personage. In the eighth century there were three varieties of tonsure: the Greek, in which the entire top of the head was shaven; the Roman, in a circular form, in imitation of the crown of thorns; and that of St. Paul, or the oriental, from the forehead to the crown. It is supposed that the custom among the British monks was to have the hair cut in the fore part of the head, in a semicircle, from ear to ear. To say that a man was shaven, was equivalent to saying that he had become a priest or monk. When Wilfrid was admitted among the clergy, by receiving the tonsure, but not any holy order, Bede says simply, "Attonsus est," which Alfred translated, "He was shorn to priest." Hilarion was accustomed to cut his hair once yearly, a little before Easter. It was the custom in the community of Aicard, a French saint, for every monk to shave his crown on the Saturday. The founder having once been hindred on the Saturday from performing the usual operation, began to shave himself very early on the Sunday morning; but he was touched with remorse, and is said to have seen in a vision a devil picking up every hair he had cut off at this forbidden hour, to produce against him at the judgment seat of God. The aunt of Eustochium, whose history is related by Jerome (De Virgin. et ep. 22, 26, 27), having caused her hair to be gracefully curled, after the fashion of the times, a terrible angel appeared to her the following night, threatening her severely for having attempted to instil vanity into one who was consecrated as the spouse of Christ. The Capuchins wear their beards, not shaved close, but long and not clipped. Francis wore a beard, but it was very short, and his followers, who had long Burton's Monasticon. * Riddle's Ecclesiastical Antiquities. beards, were commanded to shave them.* The Templars, among other peculiarities of their institute, were commanded to wear their beards long. It is said of Chaucer's Monk, that "His hed was balled, and shone as any glas." The Institutes of Manu contain the following regulations on the subject of the hair. "By the tonsure of the child's head, with a 66 ... ... lock of hair left on it . . . are the seminal and uterine taints of the three classes wholly removed.. By the command of the Veda, the ceremony of the tonsure should be legally performed by the first three classes in the first or third year after birth. . . . The ceremony of késanta, or cutting off the hair, is ordained for a priest in the sixteenth year after conception; for a soldier, in the twenty-second; for a merchant, two years later than that. . . . Sudras, engaged in religious duties, must perform each month the ceremony of shaving their heads. . . . Ignominious tonsure is ordained, instead of capital punishment, for an adulterer of the priestly class, where the punishment of other classes may extend to loss of life.” ‡ The god Siva is represented as having matted hair; and the jatala ascetics among the Brahmans, wear their hair clotted together in inextricable involutions. Among the Budhists, the priest, from the commencement of his noviciate, is shaved; and he is provided with a razor, as one of the eight articles he is allowed to possess, in order that his tonsure may be regularly performed. The law is, that the hair is not to be permitted to grow to a greater length than two inches; but it is the usual custom to shave once every fortnight. The priests shave each other, but it is not forbidden to have the operation performed by a laic. Among the Brahmans no one is allowed (Manu, Inst. iv. 9) to cut his own hair or nails. Until the year 1266, the monks of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, were accustomed to shave one another in the cloister; but frequent injuries ensuing through their awkwardness in that office, secular persons were hired. In some instances the camerarius provided razors and towels for the monks, and they were shaved by the infirmarius. In the Sempringham * Alban Butler, passim. †Times and seasons, and the phases of the moon, are closely observed in the Fylde, Lancashire, when the first operation of cutting the infant's nails and hair is to be performed, which for a whole year are carefully guarded from the scissors. Inst. ii. 27, 35, 65; v. 140; viii. 379. rule the canons were shaved seventeen times per annum; but one of the Inquirenda of Henry's visitors was, "Whether ye bee wyckely shaven ?" Shaving the beard began about the year 1200, lest the eucharist should be defiled by it.* The priests of Budha never put a covering upon the head in Ceylon, though this custom appears not to be followed in other countries where the same religion is professed. They walk out uncovered, with the bald crown exposed to the fiercest beam of a tropical sun, but without appearing to feel any ill effect in consequence. It is said by Herodotus (iii. 12), that after a battle between the Persians and Egyptians, it was found that the skulls of the Egyptians were so hard, that a stone would scarcely break them; whilst those of the Persians were so soft, that they might be broken or pierced through with the greatest ease. The former were accustomed from their infancy to have their heads shaved, and go uncovered; whilst the latter always wore some form of head-dress. Hence it would appear that the skull, from exposure, becomes crass and callous. In the metaphysical drama, called Prabodha-chandra-udaya, a Budhist is addressed thus:-" Aha! sinner that thou art, vilest of heretics, with thy shaven crown, drest like the lowest outcastes― uncombed one-away with thee!" † There are fifteen evils connected with the growth of the hair, such as that it must be ornamented, anointed, washed, perfumed, purified, unloosed, tied, combed, curled, unknotted, and freed from vermin; and when it begins to fall off, there is regret. But the freedom from care and trouble is not the only advantage to be gained by cutting off the hair. When the hair of the priest, or his nails, are suffered to grow long, his robe is dirty and full of holes, the perspiration is allowed to remain upon his body, and his various requisites are covered with filth, his mind will partake of the same uncleanness. When the lamp, or the oil, or the wick, are not free from dirt, the light that is given is not clear; in like manner, when the mind is unclean, the truths necessary to be known cannot be discovered, and the rites of asceticism cannot be properly exercised. But when the body is clean, the mind partakes of the same purity; and as the lamp, oil, and wick, when free from dirt, give a clear light, so the mind that is pure can discern the truths, and exercise the rites in a proper manner.§ * Fosbroke's British Monachism. + Wilson's Hindu Theatre. § Wisudhi Margga Sanné. I XII. THE HABIT. The use of dress is one of the consequences of sin; and though at its first adoption it was intended only as "the veil of shame," it has since been made the instrument of much evil, by ministering to pride and passion. Hence the wish of nearly all ascetics to prevent this evil, either by returning to the simplicity of man in innocence, or by making the garment of scanty dimensions, or by adopting a dress of mean appearance, coarse, rough and ragged. The precepts given in the Pátimokkhan relative to the dress of the priest of Budha are numerous. He is permitted to have three robes, called respectively sanghátiya, uttarasanggaya, and antarawásakaya, and is not allowed to retain an extra robe more than ten days; the whole three are always to be in his possession, unless danger be apprehended, in which case he may leave one robe in the village, but not more than six days, unless specially permitted. When cloth is received for a new robe it must be made up without delay; and when it is insufficient for the making of a robe, it may not be kept longer than a month, even when waiting for so much as is required to complete it; unless when the robe has been stolen or accidentally destroyed, another robe is not to be solicited from any one; when given under these circumstances, he is only to receive two; no priest shall persuade any one to collect money to purchase for him a robe; no robe that the giver has previously been requested to present may be received: the priest may not take money from the messenger of a king or other great person for the purchase of a robe, but the money may be given to some one else; and when the priest wants a robe he may go thrice to that person, and remind him that a robe is required, and if not then given, he may thrice try to obtain it by standing in silence; but if still refused, he may not make any further effort to procure it, except that he may inform the person who sent the money of the circumstance. A priest may not seek the extra robe allowed during the rainy months before the last month of the hot season, nor have it made up before the last half-month. When a priest has given a robe to another, he may not afterwards try to regain it, or have it * The word robe may appear to be a misnomer as applied to the dress of a Budhist mendicant; but it had not always the dignity that is now attached to it, as our forefathers called the dress of a slave, roba garcionis. taken away; he may not ask for cotton thread, and then give it to a weaver to be made into cloth for a robe; when he knows that the weaver is making cloth for a robe, he may not go to him and give instructions as to the manner in which he is to make it, promising him a present. The time for making the offering of a robe being at the end of the rainy season, when wass has been performed, the priest may not receive a robe more than ten days prior to that period. When the priest obtains a new robe it must be disfigured, by marks of mud or otherwise, before he puts it on; he may not give his robe to another, without the regular form of investiture. When a robe has been given in the regular form, he is not to make a complaint that it has been given with partiality. No cloth shall be used as a covering for a sore that is more than two spans in breadth and four in length. The priest may not wear in the rainy season a robe larger than six spans in length and two and a half in breadth; and he is never to wear a robe as large or larger than the robe of Budha, which was nine spans long and six broad (in each case the span of Budha being intended). The under robe is to be so worn that no part of the body from the navel to the knee be exposed, and with the upper robe the body is to be covered from the shoulders to the heels. When the priest has forfeited a robe, on account of having kept it beyond the prescribed period, he is to deliver it up to a chapter. Approaching the assembly, and baring one of his shoulders, he worships the feet of the senior priests; then, kneeling down or sitting on his heels, he raises his clasped hands to his forehead, and says that the robe has been forfeited, being an extra one, and kept longer than ten days. The robe is delivered to the chapter, and another priest is appointed to receive it.* In the missive sent by the sangha rája of Burma to the priests of Ceylon, that hierarch dwells at length upon the necessity of great attention being paid "to the proper adjustment of the robes," and quotes the following rules from the Sékhiyáwa:-"The precept ought to be observed that I should wear the upper robe so as to envelope the body. . . . The precept ought to be observed that I should enter the village or house, well covered with my robes." From the work called Khandakawatta, which is said to contain precepts taken from the Maha Waga and Chula Waga the following rule is taken :-"When the time is announced for the perform* Gogerly's Translation of the Pátimokkhan. |