Page:Hindu Feasts Fasts and Ceremonies.djvu/27

Rh offers his usual morning prayers. After these are over, and as a preparatory rite to the Avani Avittam or Sravani ceremony, he repeats the Kamokarshit prayer. This prayer affirms that for each individual who recites it, all his sins of omission, commission and deviation originated from anger or passion, and that his. soul which is by nature pure is not responsible: for them. This prayer he repeats a hundred and eight times. This is the morning ceremony on the Sravani day. The ceremony proper commences at about midday. At that time all the Brahmans assemble and go in a body to the river or sacred tank of the village or town in which they live. The priest dictates to them a Sankalpa praying that the effect of all the sins that they have committed either consciously or unconsciously may perish with their plunge in the holy water; and consecrating the water each performs his bathing. This ceremony takes from an hour to an hour and a half. After bath the new sacred thread is worn and the old one is removed and cast away. This means that the Brahman commences his religious life anew from the Sravani day. All the ceremonies connected with the investiture of