Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c9.223

c9.223

It is significant that a practice of initiation similar to the *upanayana* also prevailed among the early Iranians. Speaking of the practice of the initation of the male and female Iranians by means of the investiture with a sacred thread at the age of fifteen, which marked their admission into the community of the followers of Ahura Mazda,² Geiger says that it was an ancient custom which was modified and developed in later times.³ That the institution of initiation prevailed among the Spartans is also well known.⁴ Hence we may suppose that initiation was practised among the Vedic Indians as well. As such in the beginning the śūdra members of the disintegrated Āryan tribes may have continued to perform the initiation rites of the *upanayana* and the *brahmacarya* in the same manner as they performed several other rituals. The Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas do not refer to the śūdra’s exclusion from the rite of the *upanayana*.