84. the life cycle
The moment Swami Vifvananda appeared the dahasaris bowed low with folded
palms and withdrew from the platform. It appeared as though they had been told
there was going to be a sannyasaceremony that night. There must be many through-
out the year, although the time-honored custom of bestowing sannyasaon an actual
cremation ground is fast falling into disuse, as is the taking ofsannyasain general.
I had asked the Swami earlier whether the injunctions of the relevant texts were in-
cumbent on every candidate. “They are, and they are not,” he had said. “Some take
them literally; some interpret them. Some give sannyasato brahmacaris on real cre-
mation grounds. I always do, especially when we are so fortunate as to have the
Manikarnikaat our doorstep. Some wander through the whole land begging their
food, practicing the text ‘they set out, begging their food ’ literally; others declare a
well-built house, a fine mansion, or a temple to be the cremation ground, and beg
their food in town for the rest of their lives—no one blames them. Why should they
not?” Then, after a while, he had added, “You will have to make the choice your-
self, BrahmacariRamachandra. If you want me to give you sannyasain this house,
I shall, because I have decided that you should have it. And if thereafter you want
to take your bhiksahere at Vifvanath’s Darbar, then that will be your great pilgrim-
age. It is for you to decide.” I made my decision then and there. I would have san-
nyasaon the cremation ground proper, and I would beg my food on the roads, as
had the mendicants of yore.
A mandala had been drawn near the center of the platform in red and white and
of the prescribed form. I sat down, and now I noticed that I was sitting in the geo-
metrical center of an almost equilateral triangle formed by three pyres. Swami Vif-
vananda sat in front of me and did acamana (a ritual act of sipping water) with his
left hand: the left hand rules over rituals connected with sannyasa, whereas the right
hand functions on all other occasions. He lit another fire from sandalwood, placing
it between himself and the mandala wherein I was sitting. He handed me two hand-
fuls of sesamum seed and kept about the same amount. The chant began: tilañjuhomi
sarasamsapistan gandhara mama citte ramantu svaha...(I offer this oblation of
sesamum, with its juice, with its ground particles, the well-scented ones. May they
delight my mind, svaha.The bulls, wealth, gold, food and drink—to the Goddess
of Wealth may they go. May these sesamum seeds, the black ones and the white
ones, liberate me from all blemishes. May I be free from debts to the gods, manes,
parents, the world....May the five winds in me be purified, so I be light, free from
blemish, having renounced....I am now beyond life and death, hunger and grief,
satisfaction and dissatisfaction.) With twenty-three svahas, the sesamum and the rest
of the oblational ingredients were thrown into the viraja-homa, the fire of final re-