The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c36.s2.8

v2.c36.s2.8

Distinct from the monthly Pārvaṇa Çrāddha seems to have been another offering, the Māsika,¹ monthly brought on the waning half of the month on an uneven day. The rites for this day are varyingly given, and in some cases the rite seems to have been assimilated to the Aṣṭakā rites. For it Hiraṇyakeçin² lays down the rule that the sacrificer up to the age of fifty should offer to the Fathers the seam of his garment, and that otherwise he should offer hair. The first idea is clearly that the dead need garments: the second seems less obvious, and it is possible that it is due to the very different idea of substitution, which becomes the more necessary, since at fifty one is approaching the age when death is claiming a man more and more energetically.³ But other theories are possible; the giving of hair may be merely a desire for communion, the burial of hair with the dead has been explained by Eitrem⁴ as at once due to this desire⁵ and to the wish to lay apart that which has been contaminated by death.