ted that if the clippings of hair or nails are allowed to fall in
the ground or ditches, evil spirits spring up from them and devour
grain and clothing in the house. It was therefore ordained for the
Parsis through their prophet Zarathustra that the cuttings of hair
or nails should be buried in a deep hole ten paces from a dwelling,
twenty paces from fire, and fifty paces from the sacred bundles called
_baresman_. Texts should be said over them and the hole filled in. Many
Parsis still bury their cut hair and nails four inches under ground,
and an extracted tooth is disposed of in the same manner. [331] Some
Hindus think that the nail-parings should always be thrown into a
frequented place, where they will be destroyed by the traffic. If
they are thrown on to damp earth they will grow into a plant which
will ruin the person from whose body they came. It is said that about
twenty years ago a man in Nagpur was ruined by the growth of a piece
of finger-nail, which had accidentally dropped into a flower-pot in
his house. Apparently in this case the nail is supposed to contain a
portion of the life and strength of the person to whom it belonged, and
if the nail grows it gradually absorbs more and more of his life and
strength, and he consequently becomes weaker and weaker through being
deprived of it. The Hindu superstition against shaving the head appears
to find a parallel regarding the nails in the old English saying:

Cut no horn
On the Sabbath morn.

Among some Hindus it is said that the toe-nails should not be cut
at all until a child is married, when they are cut ceremoniously by
the barber.

17. Superstitions about shaving the hair

Since the removal of the hair is held to involve a certain loss of
strength and power, it should only be effected at certain seasons
and not on auspicious days. A man who has male children should not
have his head shaved on Monday, as this may cause his children to
die. On the other hand, a man who has no children will fast on Sunday
in the hope of getting them, and therefore he will neither shave his
head nor visit his wife on that day. A Hindu must not be shaved on
Thursday, because this is the day of the planet Jupiter, which is also
known as Guru, and his act would be disrespectful to his own _guru_
or preceptor. Tuesday is Devi's day, and a man will not get shaved
on that day; nor on Saturday, because it is Hanuman's day. [332] On
Sundays, Wednesdays and Friday