Upanayana

and having been truly and really initiated, and won his individual intelligence, and become for the rest of time a spectator of what is fairest, so far as sight can go, in this state he continues.

Those *dīkṣās* that are longer than twenty-four days are to be known as "great.

For one who is undergoing a great *dīkṣā*, its performance must surely be at the end of it.

A *karma* that falls within a great *dīkṣā* during sacrificial sessions (*sattras*) is thus null and void.

the third is at the initiation for a sacrifice, according to the injunction of the Veda.

In the eighth year from conception, one should perform the initiation of a Brāhmaṇa;

For a Brāhmaṇa, the time for the Savitri initiation does not pass until the sixteenth year;

He is devoted to ritual action, especially the sacred rites of Śiva, the order of worship, worship of the *liṅga*, the five *balikarma* offerings, the fire-offering ritual, the rites for the dead, the *tilamūrti* rite, and the ritual of initiation (*dīkṣā*).

For if a *viku* is not careful in the performance of the sacred *dīkṣā* ritual, he will not properly know the essence of its stages.

[VS_11j§4] Especially if he misunderstands the essence and does not grasp the meaning of the sacred *dīkṣā* ritual, and does not know the sacred ultimate path, nor that which is sought by the highest lord of *yogins*, and yet he performs *dīkṣā*, for the purpose of wanting to be considered eminent and desiring to be praised by others—such a person will find the opposite of eminence and praise from others.

The `*upanayana*` (the sacred thread initiation) of a Brāhmaṇa is in the eighth year from conception or from birth;

Up to the sixteenth, the twenty-second, and the twenty-fourth year, is the secondary period for the `*upanayana*` of Brāhmaṇas, Kṣatriyas, and Vaiśyas, respectively.