also named Jaratkaru is found and given
to him as alms, he will marry her. His
conditions eventually reaches the Naga
(snake) king Vasuki, who has a sister by
this name. The marriage is performed
under the condition that if she displeases
Jaratkaru, he will leave her. Given
Jaratkaru’s ascetic past, it is not surpris-
ing that things did not work out between
them. After being married several
months, his wife has the dilemma of
allowing Jaratkaru to sleep past sunset,
which will make him late for his evening
prayers, or to wake him and risk his dis-
pleasure. She chooses the latter;
Jaratkaru is displeased with her and
leaves despite her entreaties. Some time
later the wife Jaratkaru gives birthto a
son, Astika, and thus the sage’s obliga-
tions are fulfilled.
Jat
One of the hundreds of subgroups of
traditional Indian society known as jatis
(“birth”). Each jati was associated
with—and held a monopoly over—a
particular occupation, and that occupa-
tion determined the social status of the
jati’s members; this system led to the
modern castesystem. The Jats are a
northern Indian jati whose members are
spread through many of the states of
northern India, particularly Haryana,
Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
In the Punjab the Jats are evenly split
between Hindus and Sikhs, but in other
areas the community is solidly Hindu.
The Jats’ hereditary occupation is farm-
ing, and they are often described as
tough and resilient peasants; these qual-
ities have also made them superior sol-
diers, both in the service of the British
Empire and in independent India.
Jata
A long matted lock of hair. Ascetics
often wear their hair in jatas for a num-
ber of religious and symbolic reasons.
On one level, the uncut hair is a symbol
of renunciation; its unkempt, matted
quality demonstrates the ascetic’s
distance from worldly concerns with
order and propriety. On another level,
ascetics wear jatas in imitation of the
god Shiva, the paradigmatic ascetic,
who is always portrayed wearing his hair
in matted locks. Although jatas are most
commonly worn by devotees (bhakta)
of Shiva, some strict renunciants who
are devotees of the god Vishnu also
favor this hairstyle. Finally, from a non-
religious perspective, jatas are simply a
very low-maintenance hairstyle. They
are usually rubbed with wood ash to
keep them relatively neat; as the hair
grows the jatas simply become longer,
and in many cases they can be neatly
twisted into a crown, or jatamakuta, on
the top of the head.Jatakarma Samskara
The fourth of the traditional life-cycle
ceremonies (samskaras). The first three
were to be performed before and during
pregnancy, while the jatakarma sam-
skara was to be performed immediately
after the birth. This ceremony had sev-
eral elements, but the most prominent
were uttering the word “vak” (“speech,”
a synonym for Saraswati) into the
child’s ear and feeding the child honey,
ghee, and other items believed to bring
good luck. This samskara is seldom per-
formed in modern times, although there
are many other rites connected with
birth that are intended to protect the
mother and child and to kindle the
child’s potential.Jatamakuta
A crown (makuta) made of matted locks
of hair (jata) twisted together and
bound on top of the head. In Hindu
iconography the jatamakuta is most
closely associated with the god Shiva,
who is the paradigmatic ascetic and
always wears his hair in matted locks. In
modern times, the jatamakuta is still a
hairstyle associated with many ascetics,
both Shaivaand Vaishnava.Jat