The devoted Brahman who desired to obtain the utmost good upon the dissolution of his body was enjoined to pass successively through four orders or stages of life, viz.: (1) That of relig ious student; (2) that of householder; (3) that of anchorite; (4) that of religious mendicant. Theoretically, this course was open and recom mended to every twice-born man, his distinctive occupations being in that ease restricted to the second condition, or that of married life. Prac tically, however, persons of the second and third castes were doubtless, in general, content to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a certain amount of religious instruction before entering into the married state and performing their professional duties.
It is true that in the case of the sacer dotal class the practice was probably all but universal in early times; but gradually a more and more limited proportion seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of self mortification involved in the two final stages. When the youth had been invested with the sign of his caste, he was to reside for some time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific treatises at taehed to them, in the social duties of his caste, and in the complicated system of purificatory and sacrificial rites. According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of the period of instruction was said to be—prob ably in the case of Brahmanical students chiefly —from twelve to forty-eight years, (luring which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance, and self-control were to be firmly implanted in his mind by unremitting observance of the most minute rules of conduct. Probably twelve years was the usual limit of a student's life, during which time lie had to subsist entirely on food obtained by begging from house to house; and his behavior toward the preceptor and his family was to lie that prompted by respectful attach ment and implicit obedience. In the case of girls no investiture takes place, the nuptial ceremony being considered au equivalent for that rite, On quilting the teacher's abode. the young Ma 11 re turns to his family and takes a wife. To die without hang legitimate offspring, and espe cially a son to perform the periodical rite of obsequies to his father, is considered by the true Hindu a very great misfortune. There are three sacred debts which a man has to discharge in life: that which is due to the gods, of which he acquits himself by daily worship and sacrificial rites; that due to the aneient and inspired seers of the Vedic texts, discharged by the daily study of the scriptures; and the tin debt which he owes to his manes, and of which he relieves him self by leaving a son. Some authorities add a
fonrth--the debt owing to human kind, which demands the practice of kindness and hospital ity; hence the necessity of entering into the married state. When the husband leads the bride from her home to his own. the fire which has been used for the marriage ceremony goes with the new couple. to serve as their domestic fire; and it has to be kept up perpetually day and night, by either themselves or their children, or, if the man be a teacher, by his pupils. If it should become extinguished by neglect or other wise, the guilt thereby incurred must be atoned for by an act of expiation. The domestic fire serves the family for preparing their food, for making the tire necessary daily for oe•asional offerings, and for performing sacramental rites. No food should be eaten that has not been duly consecrated by a portion of it being offered to the gods, the goblins, and the manes. The do mestic observances, many of which must be con sidered as ancient Aryan family customs, sur rounded by the Hindus with a certain amount of adventitious ceremonial, were generally per formed by the householder himself, with the assistance of his wife.
There is, however, another class of sacrificial ceremonies of a more pretentious and expensive kind, called firauta rites, or rites based on revela tion, the performance of which, though not indis pensable, was yet considered obligatory under cer tain circumstances. They formed a powerful weapon in the hands of the priesthood, and were one of the chief sources of their subsistence. Ow ing to the complicated nature of these sacrifices, and the great amount of ritualistic fortnulas and `texts recited during their performance, they re quired the employment of a number of profes sional Brahmans, frequently as many as sixteen, who had to be well rewarded for their services. Priests who refuse money for their services are eulogized by Brahmanical writers. but such vir tue was rare. The manuals of the Vedic rit uals generally enumerated three of these rites: ishtis, or oblations of milk, curds, clarified but ter. rice, grain: seasonal and annual offerings; and libations of soma. The soma, which is an intoxicating drink prepared from the juice of a kind of milkweed, sometimes called the moon plant, must have played an important part in the ancient worship, at least as early as the Indo-Persian period. It is continually alluded to both in the and the Rigrecht. In the latter work the hymns of a whole book are ad dressed to it, either in the shape of a mighty god, or in its original form, as a kind of ambrosia endowed with wonderfully exhilarating powers. In late Vedic mythology soma has become identi fied with the lunar deity, to whom it seems to have had some relation from the beginning.