[Advaita-l] Sandhyavandana procedure doubt

[Sunil Bhattacharjya]

Namaste,

I think eka-vastram is the practice when one takes bath in a river and performs the pratah-sandhya in the river itself. At other times two  clothes are required for all religious functions. Even in the pitri-karya the second cloth is kept on the knee during the performance of the Pitri-karya and it is not put on the body as it may come in the way of making alternate savya and apasavya positioning of the Yajnopavita. However if the climatic conditions, such as high humidity and high ambient temperature, make the wearing of the upper cloth uncomfortable, then one need not wear the upper cloth but can keep that handy. When we go to our guru we should have the upper cloth with us so that we can accept what the Guru may give us, by spreading that cloth on hands. It is customary not to accept hand to hand from the guru. That may be in order to show respect to the guru.  However I am open to correction.

Regards,
Sunil KB



________________________________
 From: V Subrahmanian <v.subrahmanian at gmail.com>
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta <advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> 
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2012 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Sandhyavandana procedure doubt
 
I think climatic condition too could be the reason behind the differences
in the upper-cloth requirement.  We see the Tamil and Malayalam brahmins
(and of course nambudiris) without the upper cloth draped mainly due to the
predominantly sultry weather conditions in those regions almost throughout
the year.  It would be a real torture to wear the upper cloth during
rituals for long.  Those are places where people have two baths a day.
They long to be home to take off their shirts and vests and remain bare
upper bodied.  In places like Sringeri and the rest of Karnataka a clothing
on the upper body becomes almost essential.  Even a shawl is worn on most
occasions.  It is only during cooking, etc. that the men involved remain
without the upper garment.

In fact I have even heard that 'ekavastram' is allowed only in pitR kAryams
and that two vastrams are a must in all shubha karyams.  They also say the
second (and third in some customs) upavItam (pooNal) for a gRhastha is
representative of the vastram.

subrahmanian.v
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