No particular month is fixed for the name-giving rite, as it suffices if this is performed before the annaprasana ceremony. The maternal uncle first names the child. When it is four or six months old, it is taken out to see the sun. On the occasion of the annaprasana, which usually takes place in the sixth month, the maternal uncle gives the first mouthful of cooked rice to the child by means of a golden ring. The Yatrakali serves as the night's entertainment for the assembled guests. Nambutiris are invited to perform the purificatory ceremony known as punyaha, but the consecrated water is only sprinkled over the roof of the house. The inmates thereof protrude their heads beneath the eaves so as to get purified, as the Brahmans do not pour the water over them. The chaula or tonsure takes place at the third year of a child's life. The maternal uncle first touches the boy's head with a razor, and afterwards the Maran and barber do the same. The initiation into the ashtakshara takes place at the age of sixteen. On an auspicious day, a Brahman brings a pot of water, consecrated in a temple, to the pisharam, and pours its contents on the head of the lad who is to be initiated. The ceremony is called kalasam-ozhuk-kua, or letting a pot of water flow. After the teaching of the ashtakshara, the youth, dressed in religious garb, makes a ceremonial pretence of proceeding on a pilgrimage to Benares, as a Brahman does at the termination of the Brahmacharya stage of life. It is only after this that a Pisharati is allowed to chew betel leaf, and perform other acts, which constitute the privileges of a Grihastha. The funeral rites of the Pisharatis are very peculiar. The corpse is seated on the ground, and a nephew recites the ashtakshara, and prostrates himself before it. The body is bathed, and dressed. A grave, nine feet deep and three feet square, is dug in a corner of the grounds, and salt and ashes, representing all the Panchabhutas, are spread. The corpse is placed in the grave in a sitting posture. As in the case of a Sanyasi, who is a Jivanmukta, or one liberated from the bondage of the flesh though alive in body, so a dead Pisharati is believed to have no suitable body requiring to be entertained with any post-mortem offerings. A few memorial rites are, however, performed. On the eleventh day, a ceremony corresponding to the ekoddishta sradh of the Brahman is carried out. A knotted piece of kusa grass, representing the soul of the deceased, is taken to a neighbouring temple, where a lighted lamp, symbolical of Maha Vishnu is worshipped, and prayers are offered. This ceremony is repeated at the end of the first year. [101] Some Pisharatis are large land-owners of considerable wealth and influence. [102] Pisu Perike.--Perikes who weave gunny-bags. Pitakalu (dais, on which a priest sits).--An exogamous sept of Odde. Pittalavadu.--A Telugu name for Kuruvikkarans. Podapotula.--A class of mendicants, who beg from Gollas.