History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.8

v2.c24.8

Ṛg. III. 8. 4⁶²⁰ is a verse that clearly indicates that some of the characteristics of upanayana described in the gṛhya sūtras were well known even then. There the sacrificial post (yūpa) is praised as a young person (i. e. in the language of the later classical rhetoricians there is the first kind of the figure Atiśayokti) 'here comes the youth, well dressed and encircled (the boy by his mekhalā and the post by its raśanā); he, when born, attains eminence; wise sages, full of devotion to the gods in their hearts and entertaining happy thoughts, raise him up'. Here in 'un-nayanti' we have the same root that we have in upanayana. This mantra is employed in the upanayana by several gṛhya sūtras e. g. Āśv. I. 20. 8 (who employs it for making the boy circumambulate) and Pār. II. 2. (prescribe that the mantra is to be recited when tying the girdle round th boy’s waist). In the Tai. S. VI.⁶²¹ 3. 10. 5 we have the famou passage referring to the three debts where the words ‘brahmacārī and ‘brahmacarya’ occur. ‘Every brāhmaṇa when born i indebted in three debts viz. in brahmacarya to the sages, i sacrifice to the gods and in offspring to the manes; he indee becomes free from debts who has a son, who sacrifices and wh dwells (with the teacher) as a brahmacārī.’