Bathing is normally the last part of one’s
morning rites, preceded by cleaning
one’s teeth and tongue, rinsing the
mouth (achamana), and (immediately
before bathing) voiding one’s bladder
and bowels. These latter acts are a nec-
essary part of life, but they also render
one ritually impure, a state that the bath
removes. People generally perform any
daily worship immediately after
bathing, while this ritual purity is
still unbroken.
Most people bathe only in the morn-
ing, although those scrupulously con-
cerned with purity (generally brahmins
or ascetics) will bathe more often. The
bath itself is usually quite brief and
some in cases consists of simply
immersing oneself in a natural body of
water, or pouring a bucket of water over
one’s head. In modern times people
often use soap, but the traditionally pre-
scribed cleansing medium is earth. It is
preferable to bathe in running water,
since the bath purifies by removing the
impurity (ashaucha) and carrying it
away and although bathing in a large
pond is seen as acceptable, bathing in a
bathtub is seen as simply spreading the
impurity around rather than getting rid
of it. Although the most common medium
for bathing is water, when this is impos-
sible one can ritually cleanse oneself
with oil, or one can perform ritual
cleansing with mantrasby using sacred
sounds to remove defilement and bring
one to a state of ritual purity.
In the context of worship, snana is
the sixth of the sixteen traditional
upacharas(“offerings”) given to a deity
as part of worship, on the model of treat-
ing the deity as an honored guest. In this
offering, the deity is bathed, either liter-
ally or symbolically. The underlying
motive here, as for all the upacharas, is
to show one’s love for the deity and min-
ister to the deity’s needs.
Snataka
(“[one who has] bathed”) In the dharma
literature, this is the name for a
young man who had performed the
samavartana samskara, the life-cycle
ceremony that marks the end of
his stage of lifeas a celibate student
(brahmacharin) and return to his
parental home. The most important ele-
ment in the rite was a bath, after which
he changed into new clothes, marking
his change in status. Before doing this
he was supposed to ask his guru’sper-
mission, and also to give him his
teacher’s fee (dakshina), both as pay-
ment for services rendered and as a sign
of respect. A young man who had per-
formed this rite would be eligible to get
married, and the literature prescribes
that this should follow in short order.Solah Somvar Vrat
A religious vow (vrat) that is a variant of
the worshipof the god Shivaprescribed
for every Monday(Somvar), the day of
the weekover which he is believed to
preside. In the Solah Somvar Vrat, the
observer vows to do perform this rite for
sixteen (solah) consecutive Mondays.
Each week’s observance is marked by
fasting (upavasa), worship, and reading
aloud the charter myth for this particu-
lar observance. As with most literature
pertaining to such rites, the text ends
with a catalog of the benefits brought by
the rite—in essence, it gives whatever
one desires.
According to the vow’s charter myth,
as Shiva and his wife Parvatiare playing
dice in a temple, Parvati asks a nearby
brahminwhich of them will win, and
when he replies that it will be Shiva, she
angrily curses him to be afflicted with lep-
rosy. The curse comes true (as with all
cursesin Indian mythology) and the
brahmin is in a terrible state. Shiva takes
pity on the brahmin, tells him to perform
the Solah Somvar Vrat, and on the six-
teenth Monday, the brahmin is completely
cured. Some time later Parvati sees him
and is amazed at his recovery. When she
asks how he has been cured, the brahmin
tells her about the vow, which she later
uses to cure her son of disobedience (thus
emphasizing the power of the vow, since
it is even used by the gods themselves).Snataka