प्राचीन भारत में शिक्षा (डॉ. ए.एस. अल्तेकर - गुरुकुल एवं बौद्ध विहार शिक्षण इतिहास)

I, B] UPANAYANA RITUAL 271 Who were eligible for it ? Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas were eligible for the Upanayana and Vedic study. They are collectively called Dvijas, because they were all believed to get a second birth, a spiritual one, at the time of the Upanayana. When the ritual became obligatory, it seems to have been regularly performed by all these castes for several centuries. Smritis give detailed rules about the different kinds of girdles, staffs, sacred threads, etc. which were prescribed for the members of the various castes. Details about these minor variations would not have been evolved if the ritual had not been a general one among the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas. In the course of time, however, Vedic studies fell into background, partly owing to the setback which the Vedic religion received by the rise of the Upanishadic, Jain and Buddhist movements, and partly by the development of other branches of knowledge in the Hindu community itself. Upanayana then began to fall into disuetitude among the Kshatriyas and the Vaishyas, with whose professions in subsequent life Vedic studies were but remotely connected. This happened at about the beginning of the Christian era, when the theory that only the Brahmanas and Shudras exist in the Kali age seems to have gained ascendancy¹. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas

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1. Bhāsa (3rd century A. D.) and Daṇḍin (7th century A. D.) regarded the sacred thread as an insignia of a Brahmana and not of a Dvija. Cf :— यज्ञोपवीतेन ब्राह्मणश्चीवरेण रक्तपटः । Avimāraka, Act V. भवदंसोपनीतं यज्ञोपवीतं भूसुरभावं द्योतयति । Daśakumāracharit, 2nd Chap. Cf also Raghuvamśa, XI, 64. An inscription however shows that the Upanayana of the Hoysala King Narasimha III, who was a Kshatriya, took place in his 9th year on 25-2-1255. It appears that even when the ritual had gone out of . vogue among the Kshatriyas in general, it continued among the royal families.