Various ceremonies are attendant upon Hindu boys between infancy and the age of eight years. After that age, and before a Brahman lad is fifteen, it is imperative upon him to receive the poita, yadnupavita, zonar, janavi, or jhandiam, the sacred thread, which the Brahmans in their secret ceremonies call Yadimpavita. In the in vestiture, the priest offers a burnt sacrifice, and worships the salagrama, repeating a number of prayers. The boy's white garments are then taken off, and he is dressed in yellow or red, and a cloth is brought over his head, that no Sudra may see his face ; after which lie takes in his right hand a branch of the vilva, ./E'gle marmelos, and a piece of cloth in the form of a pocket, and places the branch on his shoulder, with shoes on feet and umbrella in hand. A poita. of three threads, made of the fibres of the suru, to which a piece of deer's skin is fastened, is suspended from the boy's left shoulder, falling under his right arm, during the reading of the incantations or invocations. The father of the boy then repeats certain formulas, and in a low voice pronounces three times, the Gaitri, O'm 1 Bhurbhuva ssuvalia, O'm! Tatsa vit'hru varennyam, B'hargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yonaha pracho dayath. O'm ! earth, air, and heaven, O'm I • Let us meditate on the adorable light of the divine Sun (Savitri), may it guide our intel lects.' After this prayer the sum poita is taken off, and the real poita, or sacred thread, put on. The receiving of the poita is considered as the second birth of a Hindu, who is from that time denomi nated dwija ' or twice-born. A Brahman boy cannot be married till he has received the poita. The sacred thread must be made by a religious Brahman. It consists of three strings, each ninety-six hat'h (forty-eight yards), which are twisted together ; it is then folded into three, and again twisted ; these a second time folded into the same number, and tied at each end in knots. It is worn over the left shoulder (next the skin, ex tending half-way down the right thigh) by the Brahman, Kshatriya, and Vaisya castes. The first are usually invested with it at eight years of age, the second at eleven, and the Vaisya at twelve.
The period may, from especial causes, be deferred ; but it is indispensable that it should be received, or the parties resisting it become outcastes. An individual is not fully a member of this class until he have assumed this emblem. It is like the Homan lad's assumption of the toga virilis.
A Kulin Brahman can marry as many wives as he likes; but there are certain Brahmans in Bengal who find the greatest difficulty in getting married to even one wife. These are the Bangsliaja Brah mans of the Shrotriya class. While a Kulin Brahman gets for every wife that he marries a handsome bribe, a Bangshaja Shrotriya Brahman has to pay down a large sum of money to the father of the girl whose hand he seeks to obtain. The consequence is that, owing to their poverty, numbers of Bangshaja Shrotriya Brahmans never get married at all. To remedy this evil, in Eastern Bengal, when in any village the number of unmarried Shrotriya becomes inconveniently large, one of the ghatak of the place—those under servants of Bidhata who take a prominent part in all marriages—goes to Shrihatta in Sylhet, There, with the assistance of his agents in the district, and by means whether fair or foul, he procures a number of girls, to whom he holds out the pro spect of a pleasant settlement in life. The girls
may not all be Brahman girls, some of them may be of the Chandal caste, and others may be young widows ; but whatever may be their caste, cha racter, and antecedents, they arc huddled together in a boat, often fifteen or sixteen in number, and taken to the glint of the Shrotriya village. The faces of the old Shrotriya bachelors become lighted up with joy, when they hear of the arrival of the hymeneal boat. The sensation which these highly-favoured boats create in Eastern Bengal, is infinitely greater than that produced in Calcutta by the orange-boats of Sylhet, or the mango boats of Malda. The Bangshaja bachelors besiege the boat in numbers. Each one selects a girl accord ing to his taste, a bargain is struck with the ghatak, and the celebration of the rites of marriage, according to the forms prescribed in the Shastras, soon follows. The plain-looking girl, for whom no Shrotriya may have a fancy, is employed as a maidservant either of the ghatak himself, or of any other who may stand in need of her services.
The influence on India of the Brahman races has been great. They developed a noble language and literature. They were the priests and the philosophers of their race ; also the lawgivers, administrators, men of science, and poets. They have brought the mass of the backward races into the social and religious organization of Hinduism. They wrote the Vedas, Brahmanas, Sutras, and Upanishads, meaning the science of God and his identity with the soul ; the Aranyakas, or tracts for the forest recluse ; and the more recent Puranas, or traditions. The six Darsana, or schools of philosophy—Sankhya, Yoga, (3, 4) Yedanta,(5) Nyaya, and (6) Vaiseshika—originated from them. They treated philosophy as a branch of religion. They had also a circle of the sciences, the Science of Language. Parini, me. 350, was the founder of Sanskrit grammar. Under every dynasty and government in India, Brahmans have held the highest executive offices alike in the civil executive and in the political administra tion of the country, for, until the middle of the nineteenth century. all learning and science centred in them. Thu introduction Into India, by the British, of the western forms of education, and the system of grants-in-aid to schools, however, have permitted, particularly in the south of India, all the Sudra and Vaisya races to com rx.ite with the Brahmans, who are being largely displaced from their former exchtsive position, though they are still a great power in the state.
There is no being more aristocratic in his idols than the secular Brahman or priest, who deems the bare name a passport to respect. The Kuhn Brahman of Bengal piques himself upon his title of nobility, granted by the last Hindu king of Kanouj (whence they migrated to Bengal), and in virtue of which his alliance in matrimony is courted. But although Menu has imposed obliga tions towards the Brahman little short of adora tion, these are limited by him to the learned in the Vedas: he classes an unlearned Brahman with an elephant made of wood, or an antelope of leather, —nullities save in name.