A richly caparisoned ass, on which was seated the prettiest girl in the town holding in her arms a baby or a large doll, was escorted with much pomp from the cathedral to the church of St Etienne.
They were often Vehkles constructed of rich lacquer; the curtains suspended in front were of the finest bamboo workmanship, with thick cords and tassels of plaited silk, and the draught animal, an ox of handsome proportions, was brilliantly caparisoned.
Boys are circumcised at the age of five or six years, when the boy is paraded, generally with a bridal procession, on a gaily caparisoned horse and dressed in womans clothes.
A girl with a baby at her breast and seated on an ass splendidly caparisoned was led through the town to the church, and there placed at the gospel side of the altar while mass was said.
His doctrine, which may be said to constitute a kind of reaction against the severe sacerdotalism of Sankara, has spread over all classes of the southern community, most of the priests of Saiva temples there being adherents of it; whilst in northern India its votaries are only occasionally met with, and then mostly as mendicants, leading about a neatly caparisoned bull as representing Siva's sacred bull Nandi.