Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/247

Rh belonging to the Kshatriya and Vai^ya castes were, no doubt, contented, with, few exceptions, to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a certain amount of religious instruction before entering into the married state, and plying their professional duties. In the case of the sacerdotal class, the practice probably was all but universal in early times ; but gradually a more and more limited proportion seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of self-mortification involved in the two final stages. On the youth having been invested with the sign 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 treatises attached to them, in the social duties of his caste, and in the complicated 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, pro bably 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 Brahman student had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house ; and Ilia 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 for 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 espe cially a son, to perform the periodical rite of obsequies, consisting of offerings of water and cakes, to himself and his ancestors, is considered a great misfortune by the orthodox Hindu. There are three sacred &quot; debts &quot; which a man has to discharge in 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 &quot; final debt &quot; 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 debt owing to humankind, which demands his continually practising kindness and hospitality. Hence the necessity of the man s entering into the married state. When the bridegroom leads the bride from her father s house to his own home, the fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony accompanies the couple to serve them as their garJi^patya, or domestic fire. It has to be kept up perpetually, day and night, either by them selves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should at any time become extinguished by nezlect 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 vaisvadeva, or sacrifice to all the deities. Tha remaining two are the offering to Brahma, i.e., the daily lecture of the scriptures, accompanied by certain rites, and that to men, consisting in the entertainment of guests. The domestic observances, many of which must be considered as ancient Aryan family customs, surrounded by the Hindus with a certain amount of adventitious cere monial, 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 irauta rites, or rites based on sruti, or revelation, the performance of which, though not indispensable, were yet considered obligatory under certain circumstances. They formed a very powerful weapon in the hands of the priesthood, and were one of the chief sources of their subsistence. Owing to the complicated nature of these sacrifices, and the great amount of ritualistic formulas and texts muttered or recited during their perform ance, they required the employment of a number of profes sional Brahmans, frequently as many as sixteen, who had to be well rewarded for their services. However great the religious merit accruing from these sacrificial rites, they were obviously a kind of luxury which only rich people could afford to indulge in. They constituted, as it were, a tax, voluntary perhaps, yet none the less compulsory, levied by the priesthood on the wealthy laity. It is true that the priest who refuses to accept any reward for officiating at a sacrifice is highly eulogized by the Brahmanical writers ; but such cases of disinterested zeal seem to have occurred but rarely. The manuals of Vaidik ritual generally enumerate three classes of strauta rites, viz., is/it is, or oblations of milk, curds, clarified butter (ghee), rice, grain, &c., animal offer ings, and libations of soma. The soma, an intoxicating drink prepared from the juice of the Asdepias acida (a kind of milk-weed, sometimes called the moon-plant), must have played an important part in the ancient worship, at least as early as the Indo-Persian period. It is continually alluded to both in the Zend Avesta and the Rigveda. In the latter work the hymns of a whole book, besides others, are addressed to it, either in the shape of a mighty god, or in its original form, as a kind of ambrosia endowed with wonderfully exhilarating powers. In post- Vedic mythology Soma has become identified with the lunar deity, to whom it seems to have had some relation from the beginning. Among the Vaidik rites the soma-sacrifices are the most solemn and complicated, and those to which the greatest efficacy is ascribed in remitting sin, conferring offspring and even immortality. They require the attendance of sixteen priests, and are divided into three groups, according as the actual pressing and offering of the soma occupies only one day, or between one and twelve, or more than twelve days. The performance of all s rauta sacrifices requires two other fires besides that used for domestic rites. The act of first placing the fires in their respective receptacles, after due consecration of the ground, constitutes the essential part of the first ishti, the agnyddhdna, which the house holder should have performed byfour Brahmans immediately after his wedding. To the same class of sacrificial ceremonies belong those performed on the days of the new and full moon, the oblation at the commencement of the three seasons, the offering of first-fruits and other periodical rites. Besides these regular sacrifices, the srauta ceremonial includes a number of most solemn rites which, on account of the objects for which they are instituted anil the enormous expenditure they involve, could only be per formed on rare occasions and by powerful princes. Of these the most important arc the rajasuya, or inauguration ceremony of a monarch laying claim to supreme rule, and the asvamedha, or horse sacrifice, a rite of great antiquity, enjoined by the Brahmanical ritual to kings desirous of attaining universal sovereignty. The efficacy ascribed to this ceremony in later times was so great that the per formance of a hundred such sacrifices was considered to deprive Indra of his position as chief of the immortals. When the householder is advanced in years, &quot; when he perceives his skin become wrinkled and his hair grey, when he sees the son of his son,&quot; the time is said to have come for him to enter the third stage of life. He should now disengage himself from all family ties, except that his wife may accompany him, if she chooses, and repair 