The birth of a Hindoo into the household of which he is to form an essential constituent is attended with circumstances which partake, more or less, of the religion he inherits. It has been said that by tradition and instinct as well as by early habits, he is a religious character. He is born religiously, lives religiously, eats religiously, walks religiously, writes religiously, sleeps religiously and dies religiously. His every-day life is an endless succession of rites and ceremonies which he observes with the utmost of scrupulousness sanctioned by divine veneration. From his very birth his mind is imbued with superstitious ideas, which subsequent mental culture can hardly ever eradicate, so strong being the influence of his early impressions.

It is now generally known that Hindoo girls are betrothed even in their tenderest years, and that the solemnisation of the marriage takes place whenever they attain to the age of puberty. Thus it is not uncommon for a young wife to be delivered of her first child in her thirteenth year, although the glory of motherhood is more frequently not realised until the fourteenth or fifteenth year. When the period of delivery arrives, and to her it is an awful period, which can be more easily conceived than described, the girl writhing under agony is taken into a room called Sootikaghur or Antoorghur, where no male members of the family are admitted. She is made to wear a red-bordered robe and two images of the goddess Shashthi made of cowdung are placed near the threshold of the room for her daily worship with rice and durva grass, for one month—the period of her confinement. If in her tender age, the labor be a protracted one, she often suffers greatly from the want of a skilful surgeon or even a proper midwife. Before the founding of that noble Institution, the Calcutta Medical College, proper midwives were not procurable, because they had had no systematic training; their profession was chiefly confined to the Dome and Bagthee caste, yet some of them were known to have acquired a tolerable fortune. Their fee varied from 5 to 50 Rupees, besides clothes and other gifts; the poor, certainly, giving less. For some years past, a strong belief has sprung up among some women that delivery in the name of god Hari Krishna is very safe. They that follow this religious regime, are believed, in the majority of cases, to have passed through the struggle of childbirth quite scathless. They use no jhall or thap,[7] bathe in cold water immediately after delivery, take the ordinary food of dhall vath, curry, fish and tamarind, after offering them to the god Hari, and on the 30th day make a Poojah (worship) consecrating in honor of the god a quantity of sweetmeats (sundesh and batasha) and finally distribute them among children and others. This distribution is called Hariloot. This strong faith in the god seems to enable them to pass the period of confinement without danger. If the offspring of such women become strong, their strength is attributed to the mercy of the said god.[8]

A woman that follows the old prescribed practice has to take jhall and thap and go through a strict course of dietetics, abstaining altogether from the use of cold water or any cooling beverage. She has to undergo the action of heat for at least five hours a day. The body and head of the newborn babe is rubbed with warm mustard oil—an application which is considered the best preservative of health in children. Exposure of the mother in any shape, is most strictly prohibited, and the use of certain indigenous drugs and warm applications is made as an antidote against all diseases of a puerperal character.

While undergoing the throes of nature, the exhausted spirit of the expectant mother is buoyed up by the fond hope of having a male child, which, in the estimation of a Hindoo female, is worth a world of suffering.

In the event of the offspring turning out a female, her friends try to encourage her for the moment by their assurance that the child born is a male, and a lovely and sweet child, ushered into the world under the peculiar auspices of the goddess Shasthi. Such assurances serve very much to keep up her spirit for the time being, but when she is brought to her senses and does not hear the sound of a conch[9] her delusion is removed, sorrow and disappointment take the place of joy and excitement, her buoyant spirit collapses and a strong reaction sets in. Thus in a moment, a grace is converted into a gorgon, a beauty into a monstrosity, an angel into a fiend. She curses the day, she curses her fate. But "such is the make and mechanism of human nature" that she soon resigns herself to the wise dispensations of an overruling Providence. She gradually feels a strong affection for the female child and rears it with all the care and tenderness of a mother; she caresses and fondles it as if it were a boy, and her affection grows warmer as the child grows. This is natural and inevitable. At the birth of a male child, the occurrence is immediately announced by sanka dhani (sound of a conch); musicians without being sent for, come and play the tom tom; the family barber bears the happy tidings to all the nearest relatives, and he is rewarded with presents of money and cloths. Oil, sweetmeats, fishes, curdled milk, and other things, are presented to the relatives and neighbours, who, in return, offer their congratulations. A rich Hindoo, though he studies practical domestic economy very carefully, is, however, apt to loosen his purse string at the birth of a son and heir. The mother forgetting her trouble and agony implores BidhÁtÁ[10] for the longevity of the child. She cheerfully suckles it and her heart swells with joy every time she looks at its face.

On the second day after delivery, she gets a little sago and cheeray vÁjÁh (a sort of parched rice). On the third day the same diet, with the addition of a single grain of boiled rice, and a little fried potatoe or pull bull, that she may use those things afterwards with safety. On the fifth day, if everything is right, the room is washed and she is allowed to come out of it for a short time; a little boiled rice and moong dhall is her diet that day.

On the sixth day, the image of the goddess Shasthi is worshipped in front of the room where the child was born,h because she is the protectress of all children. The Poojah is called the Seytayra Poojah (worship). Offerings of rice, plantain, sweetmeat, clothes, milk, &c., are presented to the goddess by the officiating priest, and the following articles are kept in her room for the BidhÁtÁ Pooroosh (god of fate) in order that he may note down unseen on the forehead of the child its future destiny, viz., a palm leaf, a Bengalee pen with ink, a serpent's skin, a brick from the temple of the god Shiva, and two kinds of fruits, atmora and veyla, a little wool, gold and silver. On the eighth day is held the ceremony of Autcowroy, or the distribution of eight kinds of parched peas, rice, sweetmeats, with cowries and pice, amongst the children of the house and neighbourhood. On the evening of that day, the children assemble and with a Koolo (winnowing fan) going up three times to the door of the room beat it (the koolo) with small sticks, asking at the same in a chorus "as to how the child is doing," and shouting, "let it rest in peace on the lap of its mother." These juvenile ceremonies, if ceremonies they can be called, give infinite delight to the children, who are sometimes prompted by the adult members of the family to indulge in jocularity by way of abusing the father, not of course to irritate but to amuse him. At the birth of a female child, in common with the depreciation in which it is held, this ceremony is observed on a very poor scale. On the thirty-first day after the birth, the ceremony of Shasthi Poojah is again performed. Hence a woman who has had as many as twelve or fifteen or more children, is called the Shasthi Booree, or "the old woman of Shasthi." Before a twig of a BÁtÁ tree, the priest, while repeating the usual incantation, presents offerings of rice, fruits, sweetmeats, cloths, parched peas and rice, oil, turmeric, betel, betel-nuts, two eggs of a duck, and twenty-one small wicker baskets filled with khoyee (parched rice) plantain and bÁtÁsÁ, which are all given to a number of women whose husbands are alive. It is on this occasion that the priest is also required to perform the worship of the goddess Soobachinee,[11] said to be one of the forms of the goddess Doorga.

When the father first goes to see the child, he puts some gold coin into its hand and pours his benediction on its head. Other relatives who may be present at the time do the same.

All respectable Hindoos keep an exact record of the birth of a child, especially a male child. Every family has its Dowyboghee or astrologer who prepares a horoscope in which he notes down the day, the hour and the minute of the birth of the child, opens the roll of its fate and describes what shall happen to it during the period of its existence. These horoscopes are so much relied on, that if it is stated therein that the stellar mansion under which the child was born was not good, and that it shall be exposed to serious dangers, either from sickness or accident, at such a period of its life, every possible care is taken through Grohojag and Sustyan (religious atonement) to propitiate the god of fate, and ward off the apprehended danger before it comes to pass. These papers are carefully preserved by the parents, who occasionally refer to them when anything, good or evil, happens to the child. A Hindoo astrologer is a man of high pretensions; he dives into the womb of futurity and foretells what shall happen to a man in this life, without thinking for a moment, that our Creator has not vouchsafed to us the powers of divination. In a court of justice these papers are of great value in verifying the exact age of a person, and at the time of marriage, or rather before it, they are carefully consulted as to the nature of the stellar mansion under which both the boy and girl were born, and the peculiar circumstances by which they were surrounded. Many a match is broken off because the twelve signs in the zodiac do not coincide; for instance, if the boy be of the Lion rass (sign) and the girl of the Lamb rass, the one, it is said, will destroy the other; so these papers are of very great importance when a matrimonial alliance is in course of being negotiated.

When a male child is six months old, the parents make preparations for the celebration of the UnnoprÁssun, or christening, when not only a name is given to the child, but it gets boiled rice for the first time. On this occasion, the father is required to perform a Bidhi ShrÁd so called from the increase and preservation of the members of the family. Some who live near Calcutta celebrate the rite by going to Kallee Ghaut, and procuring a little boiled rice through one of the priests of the sacred fane at a cost of eight or ten Rupees. When the rice is brought home a few grains are put into the mouth of the child by a male member of the family. The ceremony being thus performed the child from that day is allowed to take prepared food if necessary. Such families as do not choose to go to Kallee Ghaut observe the ceremony at home, and spend from 200 to 300 Rupees in feeding the Brahmans, friends and relatives, who, in return, offer their benediction and give from one to ten Rupees each to the child, which being shaved, clad in a silk garment, and adorned with gold ornaments, is brought out for the purpose after the entertainment. It is on such occasions that splendid dowries are settled on some children in grants of land or of Government securities, and I have known instances in which a dowry amounted to a lakh of Rupees. Of late years, the practice of making gifts to the child being held in the obnoxious light of a tax, the good taste of some has led them to confine the rite within the circumscribed limit of their own family. Superstition has its influence in making the choice of the name given to the child. The Hindoos are generally named after their gods and goddesses, under a belief that the repetition of such names in the daily intercourse of life will not only absolve them from sins, but give them present happiness and hope of blessedness in a state of endless duration. Some parents purposely give an unpleasant name to a child, that may be born after repeated bereavements, believing thereby the curses of the wicked shall fall innocuous on its head. Such names are Nafar, Goburdhone, Ghooie, Tincurry, Panchcurry, Dookhi, &c. In the case of females, she who has many daughters, and does not wish for more, gives them such names as Khaynto (cessation,) ArnÁ (no more,) GhyrnÁ (despised,) Chee chee (expression of contempt.)[12]

Except under extraordinary circumstances, a Hindoo mother[13] seldom engages a wet nurse; she continues to suckle her child till it is three or four years old, and attends at the same time to her numerous household duties, which are by no means light or easy. Indolent loveliness, reclining on a sofa, is not a truthful picture of her life; it may be she has to cook for her husband, because he is such an orthodox Hindoo that he will on no account accept prepared food (such as rice, dhall, vegetables, curry, &c.) from any other hand. In such families, the woman has to rise very early, perform her daily ablutions and attend to the duties of the kitchen, and before nine the breakfast must be ready, as the husband has probably to attend his office at ten. It is not an uncommon sight to see a woman cooking, suckling her child, and scolding her maid servant at one and the same time. A Hindoo woman is not only laborious, but patient and submissive to a degree; let the amount of privation be ever so great, she is seldom known to murmur or complain. All her happiness is centred in the proper discharge of her domestic and social duties. So simple and unambitious is a Hindoo female, that she generally considers herself amply rewarded if the food prepared by her hands is appreciated by those for whom it is intended. It is a lamentable fact that, expert as she doubtless is in the art of cooking, she is totally incapable of nourishing the minds of her children with any solid intellectual food worthy of the name. As already indicated, she communicates to her child what she can out of her own store of simple ideas and superstitious beliefs, but her best gift is the care and tenderness which she lavishes upon it, and the wakening of its young soul to return the sense of her own love.