Page:A history of Sanskrit literature (1900), Macdonell, Arthur Anthony.djvu/265

 and under the other arm. The first is made of different wood, the others of different materials according to caste. The sacred cord is the outward token of the Ārya or member of one of the three highest castes, and by investiture with it he attains his second birth, being thenceforward a "twice-born" man (dvi-ja). The spiritual significance of this initiation is the right to study the Veda, and especially to recite the most sacred of prayers, the Sāvitrī. In this ceremony the teacher (āchārya) who initiates the young Brahman is regarded as his spiritual father, and the Sāvitrī as his mother.

The rite of upanayana is still practised in India. It is based on a very old custom. The Avestan ceremony of investing the boy of fifteen with a sacred cord upon his admission into the Zoroastrian community shows that it goes back to Indo-Iranian times. The prevalence among primitive races all over the world of a rite of initiation, regarded as a second birth, upon the attainment of manhood, indicates that it was a still older custom, which in the Brahman system became transformed into a ceremony of admission to Vedic study.

Besides his studies, the course of which is regulated by detailed rules, the constant duties of the pupil are the collection of fuel, the performance of devotions at morning and evening twilight, begging food, sleeping on the ground, and obedience to his teacher.

At the conclusion of religious studentship (brahma-charya), which lasted for twelve years, or till the pupil had mastered his Veda, he performs the rite of return (samāvartana), the principal part of which is a bath, with which he symbolically washes off his apprenticeship. He is now a snātaka ("one who has bathed"),