Page 126 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

ORION AND HIS BELT 111
Mimansakas • understand them to apply not to the sacred thread,
as we now wear it, but to a piece of cloth or deer-skin, which
everyone must use at the time of sacrificing. It appears therefore,
that in the oldest times the Bd.hmps wore a piece of cloth or deer-
skin and not a thread. This conclusion is further strengthened by
the fact, that according to the ritual given in the Sdtras, no sacred
thread is mentioned in the description of the ceremony_ of Upana-
yana;t while the investiture with the thread is looked upon at pre-
sent as the principal part of that ceremony. We have still retained
a memory of this old practice in the performance of obsequies
and at the time of performing sacrifices, when a piece of cloth is
worn in addition to the sacred thread. Devalat says that out of
the three sacred threads to be worn, one is a substitute for the
upper garment, thus clearly indicating what the old practice was.
But this is not the .Place to go into these details. It is enough for
our purpose to notice that yajnopavita originally, meant a piece of
cloth and that in the times of smriti-writers, it came to be symbo-
licaliy represented by the sacred thread, thrice twisted and thrice
folded. There is, however, another difficulty which must be here
noticed. The Parsis wear their sacred thread round the waist while
the BrAhma~s usually wear it over the left shoulder and across
the body, leaving the right arm free:( i. e. upay£ta ). The Parsis
may thus be said to wear their sacred thread after the manner of
Orion; but in the'~case of the Brihmat;ts, it may ·be questioned
if their manner of wearing the thread c.orresponds to the position
of Orion's belt. From the passage in the Taittirtya Sa!p.biti
referred to above, it will however, be seen that niv£ta
( and not upavfta ), is the position of the thread there prescribed
for all human actions, or, in other words, for doing all ordinary

• eh laimintya nylya mlla vistlra, iii. 4· x. I!'J( ' ~~for~
~6fi~lif ~l"ilfii!if ~ill~;~" (Taitt. Arn., ii. I)
~~lfili((l ~~~6t~Pf~l Taitt. Arn. ii. I in tho
only passage in the Vedic works which fully describes the positions
firilm etc., and in ex. pressly mentions Cfffi and ~. but not ~.
t See Ttrlnltha·a Vlchaspatya s. v. ujovita. Also Ashvala4yana.
Grihya Sutra i. 19, 8~1~72, where ojina, mekhala and dauda are alone
m en.Lioned.
! ~~!"1\1~ ~~~I