When a Hindoo boy begins his studentship, which lasts for an indeterminate number of years, he is no longer regarded as an inmate of his father’s house, but is wholly under the supervision of his instructor, and is supposed to beg his food and lodging from persons charitably inclined. As a general rule, the boy still eats at home; but his meals are given him not in the name of relationship, but as a charity asked for the sake of the gods. Beside this quasi-exile, Oman found his life a very different matter from the former free and comfortable existence. No longer could he call a single hour of the day his own. His initiation as a student had taken place in the early spring of the year 1215, and was immediately followed by the great _Sravana_ festival for the planting of crops and the _Adhya-Yopa-Karman_, or opening of the course of study. His part in the religious ceremonies lasted for a week, during which time there was much fasting and little sleep. Then, on the new-moon day of the month of March, began the routine that was to last, almost unbroken, for five years. Every morning, between dawn and sunrise, Oman and his three fellow-students assembled in the broad, sandy square near the apology of a temple to Siva, and there replenished the sacrificial fires, which were never extinguished. When the blaze was high and the sun had reached the horizon, Asvarman would make his appearance, and, seating himself before a fire with his face to the east, his pupils opposite him on the other side of the blaze, would begin the morning recitation of prayers—a dozen verses of the Rig-Veda, already familiar to the boys. After this, the students were instructed in Pâli texts, generally committing to heart each sentence as it was read. At noon they were dismissed to beg a meal in the village; and, early in the afternoon, they returned to continue their study, which lasted till sunset, when the evening Agnihotra was performed and they were dismissed for the night, burdened with an endless list of rules which they must not break on pain of penance. The only relief from this monotonous existence came on Uposatha days:—days of sacrifice to the new or the full moon; and certain sacred festival days, when ceremonial took the place of the usual study.