I can, however, not pass over the well-known subject of the Samskaras, certain rites which under the Sutras every Hindu is bound to perform if he professes to be a Hindu. Those rites, twenty-five in all, may be divided into three groups, rites incumbent, rites optional and rites incidental. The incumbent rites are such as every householder is bound to observe for securing immunity from sin. Every householder must rise early in the morning, wash himself, revise what he has learned and teach to others without remuneration. In the next place he must worship the family gods and spend some time in silent communion with whatever power he adores. He should then satisfy his prototypes in heaven—the lunar Pitris—by offerings of water and seamen seeds. Then he should reconcile the powers of the air by suitable oblations, ending by inviting some stray comer to dinner with him. Before the householder has thus done his duty by his teachers, gods and Pitris and men, he can not go about his business without incurring the deadliest guilt.
The optional rites refer to certain ceremonies in connection with the dead, whose souls are supposed to rest with the lunar Pitris for about a thousand years or more before reincarnation. These are called & Sraddhas, ceremonies whose essence is Sraddha faith. There are a few other ceremonies in connection with the commencement or suspension of studies, and these, together with the Sraddhas, just referred to, make up the four optional Samskaras, which the Smritis allow everyone to perform according to his means.
By far the most important are the sixteen incidental Samskaras. I shall, however, dismiss the first nine of these with simple enumeration. Four of the nine refer respectively to the time of first cohabitation, conception, quickening, and certain sacrifices, etc., performed with the last. The other five refer to rites performed at the birth of a child, and subsequently at the time of giving it a name, of giving it food, of taking it out of doors, and at the time of shaving its head in some sacred place on an auspicious day. The tenth, with the four subsidiary rites connected with it, is the most important of all. It is called Upanavana, the "taking to the gurnu," but it may yet better be described as initiation. The four subsidiary rites make up the four pledges which the neophyte takes on initiation. This rite is performed on male children alone, at the age of from five to eight in the case of Brahmans, and a year or two later in the case of others, except Sudras, who have nothing to do with any of the rites save marriage. The young boy is given a peculiarly-prepared thread of cotton to wear constantly on the body, passing it cross-ways over the left shoulder and under the right arm. It is a mark of initiation which consists in the imparting of the sacred secret of the family, and the order, to the boy, by his father and the family gurnu.
