What is the significance of the sacred thread ceremony

It is increasingly common for young Hindus in the UK and in urban India to have the ceremony at different ages. Commitment Sacred Thread ceremony Upanayana The Sacred Thread ceremony is a ceremony for boys in some Hindu communities to confirm they are of an age to take on religious responsibility.

Features of the Sacred Thread ceremony include: The Janoi is made up of three strands, representing purity of thought, words and actions. The cotton strands go over the left shoulder and under the right arm.

Janoi wearers may chant a special mantra when putting on and taking off their sacred thread. Vows are made to obey all aspects of the first ashrama. The guru and the father wrap a new white silk dhoti around the waist of each boy.

He will wear that thread throughout his life as a student and, later, as a householder. Each boy is then instructed to stand on a stone slab, symbolic of the firmness of resolve that must accompany a life of learning. The ritual culminates with the bestowal of the sacred gayatri mantra , the prayer to the Sun for its enlightening radiance. In this rite of rebirth, the mother, the father, the guru and the son all huddle under the white silk cover while the sacred words are taught, and then spoken for the first time by the initiate.

The final act of the upanayana expresses the new relationship the young boys now have to their families. As newly minted brahmacharis , or students of sacred learning, they come with their begging dishes to their own mothers, requesting alms to sustain them. Their mothers and then all the women of the family respond generously with fruits and rice.

Today the upanayana does not mean leaving home for the ascetic life of a student. The upanayana is one of the samskaras , the rites of passage that shape the whole course of life for many Hindus. There are rites for the safe-delivery of a baby, rites of naming, first-feeding, and first hair-cutting. There are samskaras for education, for marriage, and for the maturity of old age. In performing all these rites, Hindus powerfully enact the sanctity that should flower in each and every phase of human life.

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