s service.

A Kabirpanthi religious service is called Chauka, the name given to the
space marked out for it with lines of wheat-flour, 5 or 7 1/2 yards
square. [293] In the centre is made a pattern of nine lotus flowers
to represent the sun, moon and seven planets, and over this a bunch of
real flowers is laid. At one corner is a small hollow pillar of dough
serving as a candle-stick, in which a stick covered with cotton-wool
burns as a lamp, being fed with butter. The Mahant sits at one end and
the worshippers sit round. _Bhajans_ or religious songs are sung to the
music of cymbals by one or two, and the others repeat the name of Kabir
counting on their _kanthi_ or necklace of beads. The Mahant lights a
piece of camphor and waves it backwards and forwards in a dish. This
is called Arti, a Hindu rite. He then breaks a cocoanut on a stone,
a thing which only a Mahant may do. The flesh of the cocoanut is cut
up and distributed to the worshippers with betel-leaf and sugar. Each
receives it on his knees, taking the greatest care that none fall
on the ground. If any of the cocoanut remain, it is kept by the
Mahant for another service. The Hindus think that the cocoanut is a
substitute for a human head. It is supposed to have been created by
Viswamitra and the _buch_ or tuft of fibre at the end represents the
hair. The Kabirpanthis will not eat any part of a cocoanut from other
Hindus from which this tuft has been removed, as they fear that it
may have been broken off in the name of some god or spirit. Once the
_buch_ is removed the cocoanut is not an acceptable offering, as its
likeness to a human head is considered to be destroyed. After this
the Mahant gives an address and an interval occurs. Some little time
afterwards the worshippers reassemble. Meanwhile, a servant has taken
the dough candle-stick and broken it up, mixing it with fragments of
the cocoanut, butter and more flour. It is then brought to the Mahant,
who makes it into little _puris_ or wafers. The Mahant has also a
number of betel-leaves known as _parwana_ or message, which have been
blessed by the head _guru_ at Kawardha or Damakheda. These are cut up
into small pieces for delivery to each disciple and are supposed to
represent the body of Kabir. He has also brought _Charan Amrita_ or
Nectar of the Feet, consisting of water in which the feet of the head
_guru_ have been washed. This is mixed with fine earth and made up into
pills. The worshippers reassemble