It is noted that in almost every religion, there are ceremonies that celebrate rites of passage throughout a person’s life. In Judaism, there is the bar/bat mitzvah. In many sects of Christianity, the confirmation is held to declare that the individual is a participating member of the church. In Hinduism, for young individuals around the age of 13, a thread ceremony, known as an Upanayanam, is held to initiate the individual into his Brahmacharya stage — the part of his life where the individual lives as a student.
Interestingly enough, the Upanishads have essentially set 4 stages or ‘ashramas’ of life as a Hindu that we all tend to follow, to an extent. After the Brahmacharya stage, at around the age of 25, the individual will enter the Grihasta stage of life, which is also known as the householder stage. It is here where the individual will marry, build a family and work toward his career. The third and fourth stages of life, known as the Vanaprastha stage and the Sanyaasa stage, require the individual to renounce and retire from social and professional life and be totally devoted to God. The last two ashramas mark the end of life, where the individual will either become one with God or be reborn into the cycle.
I feel that it’s rather interesting how the ancient sages had set these rules with such accuracy that these ashramas can be followed even today to an extent.
A general question to all: do other religions also have set sections of life in which an individual must follow a certain way of life?
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In the post, you mention the idea of the upanayanam — from what I know, only guys go through this rite of passage. Somehow the inequality always bothered me. In Judaism and Christianity both males and females celebrate the transition into a new stage of life (whether adulthood, or legit participation in church tradition, or otherwise) — does this occur for both males and females in Hindu tradition as well?
In Zoroastrianism there is also a thread ceremony, the Navjote, except that it is not restrictive: neither by class, nor by gender.
Buddhism, similar to Hinduism in so many ways, also has this idea of the opanayiko, except that it is also open to all classes and genders.
Sikhism has a baptism of sorts, the amrit sanskar, which is also for every Sikh.
Islam has no type of inauguration for young Muslims, as long as they practice the fundamental tenets of Islam.
This idea of an inauguration highlights this disparity between Hinduism and most other religions. Hinduism remains one of the few religions NOT based upon equality of all persons.
In Christianity and Islam, while equality of course is not necessarily preserved, it seems to be a tenet of those faiths: that is precisely, perhaps, what makes them religions of the masses.
In Judaism, however, all Jews are above others, so therein lies a discrete inequality. Hinduism’s inequality is probably more continuous in nature.
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