Education in Ancient India c14.s2.16

c14.s2.16

Who were eligible for it? Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were eligible for the Upanayana and Vedic study. They are collectively called Dvijas, because they were all believed to get a second birth, a spiritual one, at the time of the Upanayana. When the ritual became obligatory, it seems to have been regularly performed by all these castes for several centuries. Smritis give detailed rules about the different kinds of girdles, staffs, sacred threads, etc. which were prescribed for the members of the various castes. Details about these minor variations would not have been evolved if the ritual had not been a general one among the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas. In the course of time, however, Vedic studies fell into background, partly owing to the setback which the Vedic religion received by the rise of the Upanishadic, Jain and Buddhist movements, and partly by the development of other branches of knowledge in the Hindu community itself. Upanayana then began to fall into disuetude among the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas, with whose professions in subsequent life Vedic studies were but remotely connected. This happened at about the beginning of the Christian era, when the theory that only the Brahmanas and Shudras exist in the Kali age seems to have gained ascendancy¹. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas