Brahmanism: Encyclopedia II - Brahmanism - Sacramental rites

Brahmanism - Sacramental rites

The three first castes, however unequal to each other in privilege and social standing, are yet united by a common bond of sacramental rites (samskaras), traditionally connected from ancient times with certain incidents and stages in the life of the Hindu, as conception, birth, name-giving, the first taking out of the child to see the sun, the first feeding with boiled rice, the rites of tonsure and hair-cutting, the youths investiture with the sacrificial thread, and his return home on completing his studies, marriage, funeral, etc.

The modes of observing these rites (samskaras) are laid down in a class of writings called Grihyasutras, or domestic rituals. The most important of these observances is the upanayana, or rite of conducting rituals and to acquir spiritual education.

Only in exceptional cases, when no teacher of the sacerdotal class is within reach, the twice-born youth, rather than forego spiritual instruction altogether, may reside in the house of a non-Brahmanical preceptor; but it is specially enjoined that a pupil, who seeks the path to heaven, should not fail, as soon as circumstances permit, to resort to a Brahmin well versed in the Vedas and their appendages.

Connected with this act is the investiture with the sacred cord, ordinarily worn over the left shoulder and under the fight arm, and varying in material according to the class of the wearer. This ceremony being the preliminary act to the youths initiation into the study of the Veda, the management of the consecrated fire and the knowledge of the rites of purification, including a solemn invocation to Savitri, the sun (probably Saturn), as a rule the verse rigv. ~ 62. 10, (also called Gayatri from the metre in which it is composed) which has to be repeated every morning and evening just before the rise and just before the setting of that self-luminous divine Sun, is supposed to constitute the important worship of the Arya. It is from their participation in this rite that the three upper castes are called the twice-born.

The ceremony is enjoined to take place some time between the eighth and sixteenth year of age in the case of a Brahmin, between the eleventh and twenty-second year of a Kshatriya, and between the twelfth and twenty-fourth year of a Vaishya..

He who has not been invested with the mark of his class within this time is for ever excluded from uttering the sacred savitri and becomes an outcast, unless he is absolved from his sin by a council of Brahmins, and after due performance of a purificatory rite resumes the badge of his caste.

On the youth having been invested with the badge of his caste, he was to reside for some time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific or theoritical treatises attached to them, in the religious duties of his caste, and in the complex system of purificatory and sacrificial rites.

According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of this period of instruction was to be, probably in the case of Brahmanical students chiefly, of from twelve to forty-eight years; during which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance and self-control were to be firmly implanted in the youth's mind by his unremitting observance of the most minute rules of conduct.

During all this time the student had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house; and his behaviour towards the preceptor and his family was to be that prompted by respectful attachment and implicit obedience.

In the case of girls no investiture takes place, but for them the nuptial ceremony is considered as an equivalent to that rite. On quitting the teacher�s abode, the young man returns to his family and takes a wife. To die without leaving legitimate offspring, and especially a son, capable of performing the periodical rite of obsequies (shraddha), consisting of offerings of water and balls of rice, to himself and his two immediate ancestors, is considered a great misfortune by the followers of Brahminism.

There are three sacred duties which a man has to discharge in his life, viz, that which is due to the gods, and of which he acquits himself by daily worship and sacrificial rites; that due to the rishis, or ancient sages and inspired seers of the Vedic texts, discharged by the daily study of the scripture; and the final debt which he owes to his manes, and of which he relieves himself by leaving a son. To these three some authorities add a fourth, viz, the duty to humankind and to other living beings, which demands his continually practising kindness, hospitality and non-violence. Hence the necessity of a mans entering into the married state or the householder stage.

When the bridegroom leads the bride from her fathers house to his own home, and becomes a grihastha, or householder, the sacred fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony accompanies the couple to serve them as their gfrhapftya, or domestic fire. It has to be kept up perpetually, day and night, either by themselves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should at any time become extinguished by neglect or otherwise, the guilt incurred thereby must be atoned for by an act of expiation. The domestic fire serves the family for preparing their food, for making the five necessary daily and other occasional offerings, and for performing the sacramental rites above alluded to. No food should ever be eaten that has not been duly consecrated by a portion of it being offered to the gods, the beings and the manes. These three daily offerings are also called by the collective name of vaishvadeva, or sacrifice to all the deities of the Universe. The remaining two are the offering to Brahma, i.e. the daily recitation of the scriptures, accompanied by certain rites, and that to men, consisting in the entertainment of guests.

The domestic observances, many of them probably ancient Aryan family customs, surrounded by the Hindus with a certain amount of adventitious ceremony, were generally performed by the householder himself, with the assistance of his wife. There is, however, another class of sacrificial ceremonies of a more pretentious and expensive kind, called Srauta rites, or rites based on sruti, or revelation, the performance of which, though not indispensable, were yet considered obligatory under certain circumstances. However great the religious merit accruing from these sacrificial rites, they were conducted only for special occasions and very rarely.

With one not duly initiated no righteous man was allowed to associate or to enter into connections of affinity. The duty of the Shudras was to assist and help the twice-born classes, and exempted from studying sacred scriptures for attaining moksha. He was exempted from studying sacred texts, but acquired it through secondary texts like puranas and other stories. No Brahman might recite a Vedic text where a man of the servile caste might overhear him, nor may he even teach him the laws of expiating sin.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Sacramental rites", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki