The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v2.c31.s4.1

v2.c31.s4.1

A Brahman child in the eighth year from conception or birth, a Kṣatriya in the eleventh, a Vaiçya in the twelfth, should be received as a student by a teacher:⁵ the period can be increased to 16, 22, and 24 years respectively, but after that a youth has lost the right to say the Sāvitrī verse, and should not be associated with, taken as a pupil, permitted to sacrifice, or accepted as a son-in-law: if the Sāvitrī is lost for three generations, the right of the sacraments is lost, and can only be regained by the performance of the Çrauta rite called the Vrātya Stomas. The ceremony of the reception is performed with much form before a fire newly lighted by friction or taken from the household fire: north of it are laid the necessary utensils, a stone, a fresh garment, a skin, a girdle, a staff, and twenty-one pieces of wood. The Sūtras give innumerable details of the garments, the skin, and the staff: the materials and colour differ for each caste: thus the skin is of a black antelope for a Brahman, of a Ruru deer for a Kṣatriya, of a goat or of a sheep for a Vaiçya, their girdles of Muñja, of a bowstring, or wool, and so on, but the differences are endless; the garment should be woven on that day. The teacher makes the pupil stand on the stone to secure firmness, he puts on his new garment and girdle and the sacred cord, and then the skin; the boy is fed and a water libation offered.¹ Then comes the formal taking of the student as a pupil by the teacher, effected by a dialogue of request and acceptance under the auspices of Savitṛ, and with reference to the seer ancestry of teacher and pupil. They both wash. Then follow rites to bring the two into close contact: the teacher takes the pupil by the shoulders and grasps his right hand with suitable formulae, and says to him, ‘On the instigation of Savitṛ, be the pupil of Bṛhaspati: taste water, lay wood on the fire, do thy work, sleep not by day’. Then the teacher touches the pupil’s heart with a magic formula to unite their hearts, touches his navel, then whispers formulae in his ear and prays for wisdom for the child: finally he commends him to the care of gods and demons, or gods only.