158 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
sleep by day, depending (completely) on the teacher learn the Veda.’ He (the
student) should beg (food) in the evening and the morning; he should put a fuel stick (on fire) in the evening and morning. That (which he has received by begging) he should announce to the teacher; he should not sit down (but should be standing) the rest of the day.
The Upanayana ends with the teaching by the Acharya to the boy of the Vedic Mantra known as the Gayatri Mantra. Why the Gayatri Mantra is regarded as so essential as to require the ceremony of Upanayana before it is taught it is difficult to say.
From this description of the Upanayana ceremony two things are clear. First is that the purpose of Upanayana was to initiate a person in the study of the Vedas which commenced with the teaching of Gayatri Mantra by the Acharya to the Brahmachari. The second thing that is clear is that certain articles were regarded as very essential for the Upanayana ceremony. They are (1) two garments one for the lower part of the body technically called Vasa and the other for the upper part of the body called Uttariya, (2) Danda or wooden staff,
(3) Mekhala or a girdle of grass tied across the waist.
Any one who compares this description of Upanayana as it was performed in ancient times with the details of the ceremony as performed in later days is bound to be surprised at the absence of any mention of thread called Yajnopavita to be worn by the Brahmachari as a part of his Upanayana. The centre of the modern ceremony of Upanayana is the wearing of this thread and the whole purpose of the Upanayana has come to be the wearing of this Yajnopavita [1 ] So important a part this Yajnopavita has come to play that most elaborate rules have come to be framed about its manufacture and its use.
The Yajnopavita should have three threads, each thread to be of nine strands well twisted. One tantu (strand) stands for one devata (deity).
The Yajnopavita should reach as far as the navel, [2] should not reach beyond the navel, nor should it be above the chest.
Yajnavalkya (T, 16 and 133) calls It Bramhu Sutra,
Kane, D.S. H (i), p. 292.
The nine devatas of the nine tantus (strands) according to the Devala Smriti are, Omkara, Agni, Naga, Sema, Pitris, Prajapati, Vayu, Surya, Vishvcdeva. Some change seems to have come about in this view. For Medhatithi (see Kane) says that in ishtis, animal sacrifices and soma sacrifices, the Yajnopavita was to have only one thread of three tantus, but it was three-fold in three classes of ahina, ekahu and sattra sacrifices as they required three fires, and in the seven somasamstha seven-fold, and five-fold when viewed with reference to the three savanas and two samdhyas.
A brahmachari was to wear only one yajnopavita, and samnyasins, when they kept yajnopavita at all, also wore only one. A snataka (i.e., one who has returned from the teacher’s house after brahmacharya) and householder were to wear two, while one who desired long life may wear more than two. A snataka should always wear two yajnopavitas, A householder may wear any number up to ten.