348 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
II. 37. Should a Brahman, or his father for him, be desirous of his advancement in sacred knowledge; a Kshatriya, of extending his power; or a Vaisya of engaging in mercantile business; the investiture may be made in the fifth, sixth, or eighth years respectively.
II. 38. The ceremony of investiture hallowed by the Gayatri must not be delayed, in the case of a priest, beyond the sixteenth year; nor in that of a soldier, beyond the twenty second; nor in that of a merchant, beyond the twenty fourth.
II. 39. After that, all youths of these three classes, who have not been invested at the proper time, become vratyas, or outcasts, degraded from the Gayatri, and condemned by the virtuous.
As to the Gayatri it is a mantra and this is how Manu explains its importance:—
II. 76. Brahma milked out, as it were, from the three Vedas, the letter A, the letter U, and the letter M which form by their coalition the triliteral monosyllable, together with three mysterious words bhur, bhuvah, svah or earth, sky, heaven.
II. 77. From the three Vedas, also, the Lord of creatures, incomprehensibly exalted, successively milked out the three measures of that ineffable text, beginning with the word tad, and entitled Savitri or Gayatri.
II. 78. A priest who shall know the Veda, and shall pronounce to himself, both morning and evening, that syllable, and that holy text preceded by the three words, shall attain the sanctity which the Veda confers:
II. 79. And a twice born man, who shall a thousand times repeat those three (om, the vyahritis, and the gayatri), apart from the multitude, shall be released in a month even from a great offence, as a snake from his slough.
II. 80. The priest, the soldier, and the merchant, who shall neglect this mysterious text, and fail to perform in due season his peculiar acts of piety, shall meet with contempt among the virtuous.
II. 81. The great immutable words, preceded by the triliteral syllable, and followed by the gayatri which consists of three measures, must be considered as the mouth, or principal part of the Veda;
II. 82. Whoever shall repeat, day by day, for three years, without negligence, that sacred text, shall hereafter approach the divine essence, move as freely as air, and assume an ethereal form.
II. 83. The triliteral monosyllable is an emblem of the Supreme, the suppressions of breath with a mind fixed on God are the highest