ABSTRACT
The Tonsure Ceremony in Siam is a rite of initiation of youths, corresponding to the Hindu Culakantah Mangala. In Siam, Tonsure takes place either in the eleventh or thirteenth years, whereas it was performed in India between the sixteenth and twenty-fourth years, according to the caste of the candidate. The companies of youths who took part in the procession changed their coronets for conical hats in an endeavour to conceal their topknots so as to appear that they also had received the tonsure. A Sokanta of the first order that of a Caufa prince, not having been performed for many years, little is remembered of it by most Siamese. In the case of the Tonsure of the late king, then Caufa Maha Vajiravudh, which took place in December, 1892, and to which all the following details of the Sokanta refer, the Kailasa was forty feet high.
