THE SHUDRAS : THE DEGRADATION OF THE SHUDRAS 161
entering into the gotra of the adoptive father. Once the thread ceremony had taken place the boy had already and irrevocably entered another gotra.
There was no room for adoption left. Both these rules show that the thread ceremony was connected with gotra and not with Upanayana.
The view that the thread has connection with gotra seems to receive support from Jain literature. Shloka 87 of the fourth Parvan of the Padmapurana by Acharya Ravishena reads as follows : [1]
“Bhagwan ! you have told us the origin of Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. I am anxious to know the origin of those who wear the thread in their neck.”
The words ‘those who wear the thread in the neck’ are very important. There is no doubt that it is a description of the Brahmins. From this it is clear that there was a time when the Brahmins alone wore the thread and no other class did. Read with the fact that the gotra relationship was confined only to the Brahmins, it is clear that the thread ceremony was connected with bringing the boy into— actually tying him up to the gotra — of his father, and had nothing to do with Upanayana which was connected with the initiation in the teaching of the Vedas.
If this is true, then the thread ceremony and the Upanayana ceremony had different purposes to serve. At some later date the two merged into one. The reason for this merger appears to be very natural. The Upanayana without the thread ceremony involved the danger of the Acharya taking the boy in his gotra. It was to avoid the danger that the father of the boy performed the thread ceremony before handing him over to the Acharya. This is the probable reason why the two ceremonies came to be performed simultaneously.
Be that as it may, Upanayana means the teaching of the Veda by the Vedic Brahmin.
III
While I am convinced that my thesis is sound, it would be over confident to think that there will not be found persons who will not raise objections to it. I anticipate the following :
(1) Is absence of Upanayana the test of Shudradom;
(2) Did the Shudra ever have the right to Upanayana?
1 Quoted by Nathuram Premi in his Jain Sahitya our Itihas (Hindi), p. 55a,