Hinduism
In Hinduism, the underlying concept is that hair is a symbolic offering to the gods, representing a real sacrifice of beauty, and in return, the offerers are given blessings in proportion to their sacrifice.
Hair cutting (Sanskrit chuda karma, chuda karana) is one of the traditional saṃskāras performed for young children:
"According to the teaching of the revealed texts, the Chudakarman (tonsure) must be performed, for the sake of spiritual merit, by all twice-born men in the first or third year."
In some traditions, the head is shaved completely, while in others a small tuft of hair called sikha is left.
In some South Indian temples like Tirumala, Palani and Tiruttani, it is customary for pilgrims to shave their heads in or near the temple of the god they are visiting.
There had been an Indian custom to perform tonsure on widows after their husbands' deaths. It is not uncommon to tonsure the head of a child after the death of a parent (usually the father). It is also usual for male relatives, especially the first-born son of the dead father, to have his head shaved in mourning. The corpse, too, often receives the tonsure after death.
K. Jamanadas has argued that tonsure was originally a Buddhist custom and that Brahmanic practices always considered tonsure inauspicious.
Tonsure in the Hindu culture serves multiple purposes and is used as a symbol. One of its most prominent, and original, purposes was to show one's love for the gods by washing away one's past and starting anew. This was done by women as well as by men. However, over the course of thousands of years, tonsure has found new purposes. It can denote one's social class or personal standing. For example, someone with a closely shaved head is practicing celibacy.
It can be also be used for punishment or to show that someone is an outcast in society because of a law he has broken. A social outcast will have a partly shaved head, while men that are ardently religious will shave their heads leaving only a sikha. Additionally, tonsure can be used for punishing people for severe crimes. For example in mid-June 2009, a Hindu woman and her two sons were accused of killing her husband. They were then beaten in public and shaved bald, symbolic of social ostracizing. There are many other cases of tonsure being used for this purpose. However, when this is done the people are shaved clean, leaving them completely bald. In historical Hindu mythology, heads and moustaches of enemies have been shaved as a humiliation.
As seen before, the process of tonsuring ones facial features such as eyebrows and eyelashes is considered a sign of bad karma.
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