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"What a tradition does in the first hours after a birth says what it thinks a newborn is." Birth Blessing is formally linked to three religions in this atlas, Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism, all three links carrying no further comment at the religion level, and this page's own description gives each one a genuinely distinct practice anyway.

Three Practices, Three Different Claims About the Newborn

"In many Muslim households the call to prayer is spoken quietly into the child's right ear, so that the first words it hears name God, and a little softened date may be rubbed on the palate. Hindu families perform jatakarma before the cord is cut, with honey and clarified butter and a verse breathed into the ear. Sikh parents carry the infant to the gurdwara, where the scripture is opened at random and the first letter of the verse gives the first letter of the name."

A Fourth Tradition, Named With No Formal Link to Match

The description also states that "Orthodox Christian custom has prayers on the day of birth for the mother and on the fortieth day for the presentation of the child," a fourth tradition with no formal link to Christianity recorded anywhere on this page. Named here rather than folded silently into the three the atlas does formally link.

What the Four Share

"The shared features are timing and speech: the blessing comes early, it is spoken aloud, and it is addressed to someone who cannot understand it. Traditions differ sharply on whether anything is thereby changed in the child, or whether the words are really for the household."

Where To Read More

• Birth BlessingLifecycle RitualsThe shared shape; three counted religions each given a distinct practice, a fourth described with no edge
• HinduismDharmic (Polytheistic)Jatakarma before the cord is cut, honey and clarified butter, a verse breathed into the ear
• IslamAbrahamic (Monotheistic)The call to prayer spoken into the right ear, a softened date on the palate
• SikhismDharmic (Monotheistic)The scripture opened at random in the gurdwara to give the child's first letter