the sacred thread—upanayana—are performed on a small scale on this day. A commencement is made of the study of the Vedas, Upanishads, codes of law and other departments of knowledge. Each lore is in turn taken up and finished. The first sentence and the last sentence of an Upanishad are repeated, and this act performed on the Sravani day means that the subject to which the sentences refer has been commenced and finished. The propitiation of the Manes by the offerings of water and sesamum and of the gods by oblations of ghee in the fire finish the Sravani ceremony. A good and sumptuous afternoon dinner follows and closes the ceremonies of the day.
Thus with the renewal of his sacred thread, the Brahman renews his sacred studies also. All his deviations from established rules having been rightly traced to either passion or anger, he confesses in a general way his sins, promises to cast them off from the Sravani day, recommences all the various departments of the study of Sanskrit lore, commences and finishes the Vedas themselves and becomes in every sehse, as the ceremony at least declares him to be, a pure Brahman again. On this special
