Boys are invested with the sacred thread at the age of five, seven or
nine years, and until that time they are considered to be Sudras and
not members of the caste. From a hundred to three hundred rupees may
be spent on the investiture. On the day before the ceremony a Brahman
and his wife are invited to take food, and a yellow thread with a
mango leaf is tied round the boy's wrist. The spirits of other boys
who died before their thread ceremony was performed and of women of
the family who died before their husbands are invited to attend. These
are represented by young boys and married women of other families who
come to the house and are bathed and anointed with turmeric and oil,
and given presents of sugar and new clothes. Next day the initiate
is seated on a platform in a shed erected for the purpose and puts on
the sacred thread made of cotton and also a strip of the skin of the
black-buck with a silk apron and cap. The boy's father takes him on
his lap and whispers or, as the Hindus say, blows the Gayatri mantra
or sacred text into his ear. A sacrifice is performed, and the friends
and fellow-castemen of the family make presents to the boy of copper
and silver coin. The amount thus given is not used by the parents,
but is spent on the boy's education or on the purchase of an ornament
for him. On the conclusion of the ceremony the boy mounts a wooden
model of a horse and pretends to set out for Benares. His paternal
uncle then says to him, 'Why are you going away?' And the boy replies,
'Because you have not married me.' His uncle then promises to find
a bride for him and he gives up his project. The part played by the
maternal uncle in this ceremony is probably a survival of the period
of the matriarchate, when a man's property descended to his sister's
son. He would thus naturally claim the boy as a husband for his own
daughter, and such a marriage apparently became customary and in
course of time acquired binding force. And although all recollection
of the rule of inheritance through women has long been forgotten,
the marriage of a brother's daughter to a sister's son is still
considered peculiarly suitable, and the idea that it is the duty
of the maternal uncle to find a bride for his nephew appears to be
simply a development of this. The above account also gives reason for
supposing that the investiture with the sacred thread was originally
a ceremony of puberty.