The before-mentioned age of the gods, or twelve thousand of their years, being multiplied by seventy-one, constitutes a Manvantara, or the reign of a Menu. There are numberless Manvantaras: creations also, and destructions of worlds innumerable: the Being supremely exalted performs all this with as much ease as if in sport; again and again for the sake of conferring happiness (_Haughton’s Menu_, p. 11. 12. 13).――D. S. [72] The manuscript omits all the words after “smaller solar bodies,” observe the asterisks.――D. S. * * * * * SECTION THE THIRD, CONCERNING THE RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES AND CEREMONIES OF THE SAMARTAGANS (SMARTAS), OR ORTHODOX OF THE HINDUS.――According to this class, there are two kinds of birth: the first, on quitting the maternal womb; the second, on the day of assuming the _Munji_[73] or _Zanar_, and repeating the established forms of prayer; as, until a person has scrupulously performed both these rites, he is not regarded as orthodox, nor an observer of their institutes. Under this are contained the _Shodásán-Karmáni_,[74] “sixteen heads,” commencing with the woman being purified from periodical illness; her attachment to her husband; the forms of prayer necessary to be used on the occasion, and observed until the moment of death; and the acts of charity enjoined to be performed after the person’s decease. Of their laudable customs are the following: 1. the _Garbh-ádhána-karma_,[75] or delivering the likeness of a son, that is, giving up a daughter to her husband; 2. the _Pungsavana_,[76] or reciting at the proper season the prayers enjoined to be said, that a virtuous offspring may be born; 3. the _Símantonnayana_,[77] that is, in the sixth month of a woman’s pregnancy, the recitation of the proper forms of prayer and giving a feast to Brahmans; 4. the _Játakarma_,[78] or the rites to be practised by the father on the birth of a son, in regard to ablution; _Hóm_, or burnt offerings; _Jap_, or devout meditation and acts of charity; 5. the _Náma-karana_,[79] when, on the eleventh day after the child’s birth, they give it a name and repeat the necessary forms of prayer; 6. on the fourth month they bring out the child, which they call the _Nish-kramana_;[80] 7. giving the child suitable food and at a propitious moment, which they call _Anna-prásanna_;[81] 8. at the age of three years they shave the child’s head and bore its ears, which rite they call _Chúd´á-karana_,[82] or the ceremony of forming the crest at the first tonsure of a Hindu. They are strictly enjoined to observe the above eight ceremonies; and if the child be of the female sex, they practise the same rites, but without the stated forms of prayer; excepting at the time of her marriage, when they are bound to recite the forms appropriated to that ceremony. 9. In his fifth year, they bind around the child’s waist a string which they call