History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c24.s1.71

v2.c24.s1.71

The Gobhila gṛ. (I. 2. 1) in treating of upanayana⁶⁸¹ says 'the student takes as yajñopavīta a cord of threads, a garment or a rope of kuśa grass'. This indicates that though a cord of threads was considered in Gobhila's days as the appropriate yajñopavīta, that was not an invariable rule in his day and that a garment could be employed instead. The commentator being brought up in the latter day tradition explains by saying that if the sūtra was lost in a forest then a garment may be worn like the sacred thread and if even that was lost a rope of kuśa. But this appears to be rather far-fetched as an explanation of Gobhila's unqualified words. Manu (II. 44) says that 'the upavīta of a brāhmaṇa should be made of cotton, its strands should be twined with the right hand moved over them (or the twist of the strands must be upwards) and it should have three threads'. Medhātithi comments on this that 'upavīta' means a particular mode of wearing a garment or a particular position of it and therefore here by upavīta is meant that which can be worn in that mode. The Sm. C. quotes a prose passage from Ṛṣyaśṛṅga 'or one may carry out all the purposes for which yajñopavīta is required by means of a garment and in its absence by a string of three threads'. From the above passages, from the fact that many of the gṛhyasūtras are entirely silent about the giving or wearing of the sacred thread in upanayana and from the fact that no mantra⁶⁸² is cited from the Vedic Literature for the act of giving the yajñopavīta (which is now the centre of the upanayana rites), while scores of vedic mantras are cited for the several component parts of the ceremony of upanayana, it is most probable, if not certain, that the sacred thread was not invariably used in the older times as in the times of the later smṛtis and in modern times, that originally the upper garment was used in various positions for certain acts, that it could be laid aside altogether in the most ancient times and that the cord of threads came to be used first as an option and later on exclusively for the upper garment.