IB World Religions 4.2.1. the Samskaras and the Ashramas: Rites Across a Lifetime Notes

4.2.1. The Samskaras and the Ashramas: Rites Across a Lifetime

The sixteen samskaras

1. A samskara is a rite of passage, and the word carries the sense of refining or perfecting something. Hindus describe the rites as shaping a person at each threshold of life rather than simply marking that the threshold has been crossed.
2. The classical list runs to sixteen, the shodasha samskara, set out in the Grihya Sutras (manuals of household ritual) and repeated in the Laws of Manu. Lists differ between texts, regions and communities, so no single sequence is used everywhere.
3. Almost all of them are domestic rites. They are performed at home in front of a fire with the family present and a purohit (household priest) reciting, rather than in a temple.
4. Agni (fire) is the constant element. Hindus treat the fire as both witness to what is promised and carrier of what is offered, which is why offerings of ghee and grain accompany the Sanskrit mantras.
5. Very few families perform all sixteen today. Naming, the first feeding of solid food, marriage and the funeral rites are the ones most widely kept, with the sacred thread ceremony kept in some communities and not others.
6. The rites also mark entry into the stages of life. The next section sets out that scheme, because two samskaras in particular open the stages that follow them.

The four ashramas

1. An ashrama is a stage of life, and the classical texts set out four of them in order. Each carries its own duties, so that what counts as right conduct changes as a person moves through the scheme.
2. Brahmacharya is the student stage. It begins at the sacred thread ceremony and is spent in celibacy studying the Vedas with a guru, traditionally living in the teacher's household.
3. Grihastha is the householder stage, entered at marriage. The texts treat it as the stage that supports all the others, since the householder earns, raises children, feeds guests and pays for the rites.
4. Vanaprastha is the stage of withdrawal. Having seen the next generation established, a person hands over the household, reduces possessions and turns towards study and meditation, in some accounts accompanied by their spouse.
5. Sannyasa is renunciation. The sannyasi gives up home, property and ritual obligations to seek moksha, and the rite of entry has him perform his own funeral rites, since the social person is treated as having died.
6. The whole scheme is an ideal drawn from Manu and the dharma texts, and it is described there for twice-born men. Hindus have always known it as a pattern to measure life against rather than a report of how most lives are lived.

Rites of birth and childhood

1. The earliest samskaras come before birth. Garbhadhana marks conception, pumsavana is performed early in pregnancy, and simantonnayana parts the mother's hair with prayers for a safe delivery.
2. Jatakarma follows the birth itself. Honey and ghee are placed on the newborn's tongue and a mantra is whispered in the ear, so that the first thing the child hears is a sacred word.
3. Namakarana, the naming, usually falls on about the tenth or twelfth day. The name may be chosen from the family's deity, from an ancestor, or from the nakshatra (lunar asterism) under which the child was born.
4. Two rites take the child outward. Nishkramana is the first outing from the house, often to see the sun or visit a temple, and annaprashana is the first feeding of solid food, usually cooked rice.
5. Chudakarana, the first head shaving, is widely kept and often performed at a temple or a family shrine. Karnavedha, the piercing of the ears, is performed for girls and boys alike in many communities.
6. Vidyarambha begins formal learning, with the child guided to write the first letters of the alphabet. In Kerala it is commonly performed during Vijayadashami, which ties a personal rite to the festival calendar.

Upanayana and the sacred thread

1. Upanayana means leading near, and the rite leads a boy to a teacher for the start of Vedic study. It is usually performed between the ages of about eight and twelve.
2. Its visible sign is the yajnopavita, a looped cord of three strands worn over the left shoulder and across the body. It is worn from that day onwards and replaced at intervals.
3. At the heart of the ceremony the boy receives the Gayatri mantra, a verse from the Rig Veda addressed to the sun, taught by his father or guru. Those who keep the practice recite it daily thereafter.
4. The rite is what makes a boy dvija, twice born, and Hindus speak of it as a second birth from the teacher and the Veda. Traditionally it was performed for boys of the first three varnas, which is why those groups are called the twice-born.
5. Two further samskaras bracket the study that follows. Vedarambha begins the study of the texts, and samavartana closes the student stage and returns the young man home, from where he is expected to marry.
6. Practice today is uneven. The rite is kept most consistently in Brahmin families, is often compressed into a single day or held shortly before a wedding, and has been extended by the Arya Samaj to girls and to boys outside the twice-born varnas.

Vivaha and the wedding fire

1. Vivaha, marriage, is the samskara most widely performed of all, and it is the rite that opens the householder stage. Hindus describe it as a bond of dharma rather than a contract, which is why the fire and not a document stands at its centre.
2. Kanyadana is the giving of the daughter by her father, and in many communities it is the emotional centre of the day. Some contemporary families have revised or omitted it, and others keep it unchanged.
3. Panigrahana is the taking of the hand, after which the couple make offerings into the vivaha homa, the wedding fire. Agni is addressed as the witness to what is being promised.
4. Saptapadi, the seven steps, is the decisive act in most communities. The couple take seven steps together, each with its own blessing, and in much of India the marriage is held to be complete at the seventh.
5. Regional signs differ. A mangalsutra is tied in the south and the west, sindoor is applied at the parting of the hair in the north, and in many ceremonies the couple are shown Dhruva, the pole star, as an image of steadfastness.
6. Scale varies enormously. Some communities spread the rites across several days with a dozen subsidiary customs, while others complete the ceremony within an hour, and family practice differs even within one region.

Antyeshti and the last rites

1. Antyeshti means the last sacrifice, and it is the funeral rite. Cremation is the normal Hindu practice, and Hindus explain it as returning the body to the elements it was made from.
2. The body is washed, wrapped in cloth and carried to the cremation ground while mantras are recited. The pyre is lit by the chief mourner, most often the eldest son, in the act called mukhagni.
3. Part way through, the skull may be ritually cracked in the rite called kapala kriya. Hindus who keep it explain it as releasing the prana (life breath) so that the atman is free to move on.
4. The ashes and bones are gathered afterwards and immersed in flowing water. A river held sacred is preferred, and the Ganga at Varanasi or Haridwar is the destination many families travel to.
5. The rites do not end at the pyre. Shraddha offerings of pinda (balls of rice) are made to the ancestors over a period of about ten to thirteen days of ritual impurity, and again each year, with a whole fortnight, Pitru Paksha, set aside for the dead.
6. Not everyone is cremated. Very young children and sannyasis are commonly buried instead, in the renouncer's case because he performed his own funeral rites when he entered renunciation and is held to have died already.