History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c46.112

v3.c46.112

One question on which controversies have raged from very ancient times is whether an ascetic should give up his topknot and sacred thread also. The Jābālopaniṣad ²¹⁹⁶ (5) states that Atri asked Yājñavalkya how a man who did not wear a yajñopavīta (when he became an ascetic) could still be a brāhmaṇa and that the great sage replied that in the case of the ascetic the Self was his yajñopavīta and the same Upaniṣad (6) states that the paramahaṁsa is to abandon in water the three daṇḍas, the water-jar, the śikya, the begging bowl, the water-strainer, the topknot and yajñopavīta and should be a seeker after the Self. In the Āruṇika Up. (2) it is said ²¹⁹⁷ that he should discharge his yajñopavīta on the earth or in water and that he should give up his śikhā and the sacred thread. Śaṁkara in his bhāṣya on Bṛ. Up. III. 5. 1 sets out at some length the arguments and the authorities on both sides and ultimately gives it as his own view that the sacred thread and śikhā should be given up by the ascetic. Viśvarūpa on Yāj. III. 66 also discusses this matter and propounds the same view. On the other hand Vṛddha-Hārīta²¹⁹⁸ VIII. 57 declares 'if an ascetic gives up the acts peculiar to brāhmaṇas, viz. keeping a topknot and wearing a sacred thread, he becomes a cāṇḍāla while alive and is born a dog after death.' The Jīvanmuktiviveka (p. 6 ff.) and Par. M. I. part 2, p. 164 ff. discuss this point and arrive at the same conclusion as Śaṁkara. The Mit. on Yāj. III. 58 gives an option. In modern times saṁnyāsins give up these two.