Page:Castes and tribes of southern India, Volume 5.djvu/258

NAMBUTIRI BRAHMAN effect that a Brāhman is a Brāhman by virtue of his karmas or actions in this life, or the lives preceding it. The meaning of the term Upanāyana is a ceremony which leads one to god, i.e., to a realisation of the eternal self through the aid of a guru (preceptor). This ceremony takes place in the seventh, eighth, or ninth year of a boy's life. As ordinarily understood, it is a ceremony for males only, as they alone have to observe the four asramas. But, in ancient days, it seems to have been performed also by females. Marriage was not compulsory, and a girl might take to asceticism at once. Sīta is said to have worn a yāgnopavitam (sacred thread). A Brāhman is not born, but made by the karmas. In other words, a Brāhman boy is, at the time of his birth, only a Sūdra, and it is by the performance of the necessary karmas — not merely the ceremonial rites, but the disciplinary and preparatory process in view to spiritual development — that he becomes a Dviga or twice-born. The word Upanāyana is composed of upa, meaning near, and nayana, leading. What the youth is led to is, according to some, Brāhmaggnana or the realisation of the eternal and universal self, and according to others only the teacher or guru. A Nambūtiri Upanāyana begins with the presentation of a dakshīna (consolidated fee) to the Ezhuttachchan, or the Nāyar or Ambalavāsi teacher, who has been instructing the youth in the vernacular. The boy stands on the western side of the sacrificial fire, facing the east, and the father stands beside him, facing the same way. The second cloth (uttariya) is thrown over the boy's head, and his right hand being held up, the sacred thread, to which a strap made from the skin of a Krishnamriga (antelope) is attached, is thrown over his shoulders and under his right arm, while he stands reverently with