Shaving the head.

MUNDAN

Mundan (the first hair cut): This sanskara is performed typically during the first or third year of age when the child’s original, first hair growth is shaved, frequently leaving only the shikha on the top/in the back. According to the sages, the hair from birth is associated with undesirable traits from past lives. Thus at the time of the mundan, the child is freshly shaven to signify freedom from the past and moving into It is also said that the shaving of the hair stimulates proper growth of the brain and nerves.

The chudakarana sanskara is also said to bring long life to the recipient and it is performed as a special ceremony in most homes, particularly for young boys.

On the banks of Mother Ganga, in Rishikesh we have a special chadakarana sanskara/mundan ceremony. In this ceremony, the special Vedic mantras and prayers are chanted by trained priests, acharyas and rishikumars. The young child is shaven clean on the banks of Mother Ganga and the hair is then symbolically offered to Mother Ganga. The child and his/her family then perform a sacred yagna ceremony and the divine Ganga Aarti.

TONSURE

Tonsure is the practice of some Christian churches and Hindu temples of cutting the hair from the scalp of clerics as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem. There were three forms of tonsure known in the seventh and eighth centuries:

(1) The Oriental, which claimed the authority of St. Paul and consisted of shaving the whole head. This was observed by churches owing allegiance to Eastern Orthodoxy. Hence Theodore of Tarsus, who had acquired his learning in Byzantine Asia Minor and bore this tonsure, had to allow his hair to grow for four months before he could be tonsured after the Roman fashion, and then ordained Archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Vitalian in 668.

(2) The Celtic, which consisted of shaving the whole front of the head from ear to ear, the hair being allowed to hang down behind. An alternate explanation (apparently first described in the modern day in the article On The Shape Of The Insular Tonsure) describes the "delta" tonsure cut as a triangle with the apex at the forehead, and the base from ear to ear at the back of the head. The Roman party in Britain attributed the origin of the Celtic tonsure to Simon Magus, though some traced it back to the swineherd of Lóegaire mac Néill, the Irish king who opposed St. Patrick; this latter view is refuted by the fact that it was common to all of the Celts, both insular and continental. Some practitioners of Celtic Christianity claimed the authority of St. John for this, as for their Easter practices. It is entirely plausible that the Celts were merely observing an older practice which had become obsolete elsewhere.

(3) The Roman: this consisted of shaving only the top of the head, so as to allow the hair to grow in the form of a crown. This is claimed to have originated with St. Peter, and was the practice of the Catholic church until obligatory tonsure was abolished in 1972.