Changing Sacred Thread In Nepal

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar

Don’t forget to change your sacred thread this year, too. The day for changing the sacred thread is the full moon day in Sravon (July-August). You can go to any holy place and take a dip in the nearby stream or a river or a well or take a shower at home and go to any holy place or temple to change the sacred thread you have worn for a year without even taking it off for a single moment. So, it must have been worn out and even soiled. The sacred thread wearing communities in Nepal are the Bahun Chettris and some Nevahs that still believe they belong to the Bahun-chetrri community despite the-then Rana rulers have dumped them to the Vaisya: the third caste of the four-Hindu castes.

If you are in Nepal you can go to Pashupatinath or Kalmochan in Kathmandu or Muktinath in Mustang or to the holy bank of rivers anywhere else whichever is the most accessible to you.

You can take a chartered helicopter flight to Muktinath means the lord of liberty; stay there for an hour and change your sacred thread and then fly back to Kathmandu. You need to take quick showers under 108 stone spouts decorated with lion faces set on three sides of the temple to Lord Muktinath. The water coming out of the limestone crevices feed the 108 spouts. Even in this month of a year, the water coming out of the spouts might be chilly if not cold for you to take a full shower because of the high altitude: more than14, 000 ft above the sea level.

After purification shower taken, you go to the temple to the Miktinath god, pray to the god and then take the services of the priest sitting at the lower step of the stairs at the entrance to the temple for changing your sacred thread. If you have forgotten to take with you a sacred thread, don’t worry about it; the priest usually carries a bunch of such sacred thread and you can have one of them at a small price.

As your helicopter is waiting for you, you follow the simplest possible rituals to wear a new sacred thread. The priest utters last few mantras to the sacred thread and then let you wear it. Thus, you have done it the changing of the sacred thread for a year. If it is your first visit to Muktinath then you can just go around for a few minutes and see how the lord Muktinath has come to dwell here. Muktinath sounds like the name of Lord Shiva but actually Muktinath is four-arm Lord Vishnu that has come to dwell there to get rid of the sin committed accidentally killing a Brahmin.

If you don’t want to charter a helicopter you have alternative to fly to Jomson directly from Kathmandu or from Pokhara, and then take a motorcycle ride or a tractor ride to Muktinath. In this way, you need to spend more time than money.

If you go to Pashupati or Kalmochan in Kathmandu, don’t take a dip in the water flowing there. It is not the holy water once the sacred river called Bagmati has carried but it is the sewage Kathmanduites have released. So, the Bagmati River has gone underground to keep its chastity. Lord Pashupati has left the shrine a long ago for a better place to dwell.

However, you will find a number of priests waiting for any customers to perform the holy ceremony of changing a sacred thread at the temple to Lord Lord Pashupati or on the bank of the Bagmati River. So, you might use the services of one of the priests there for following the age-old tradition of changing a sacred thread. Still large number of Nepalis go to Pashupati.

Another holy area you can visit is Gosainkunda where several lakes host Lord Shiva and other deities. Lord Shiva had come to this high-altitude Himalayan mountain area to cool down his tremendously heated neck caused by the poison called ‘kalkut’ Lord Shiva consumed and held on to the neck for preserving the world from extinction. The poison surfaced during the churning of the ocean by the deities and demons working together. The poison could have destroyed the whole world if the lord had not held it on to his neck. So, Lord went to Gosainkunda to cool down his burning neck.

Once a year, devotees visit Lord Shiva in Gosainkunda in the Rasuwa district during the two-week religious event in this month. People could not visit this area during other time of a year due to the snow covering the area. Nepalis used to walk from Kathmandu to Gosainkunda for eight days risking the high-altitude sickness for revering the lord, and walk back home for eight days. Currently, you can ride a bus or take your own vehicle from Kathmandu to Dhunche, and then from there you walk for three days to reach Gosainkunda. On the way, you find some teashops and so on during this two-week-long religious season. So, you can venture to Gosainkunda and change your sacred thread there.

Tamang Jhakris wearing beautiful headgears almost similar to the headgears of the American Indians, and wearing long white skirts, and playing a hadn-held drum-like instrument on the way visit Gosainkunda. Following their tradition, they visit Kumbheshvor temple in Patan on the full moon day called janaipurnima: the day of changing sacred threads after visiting Gosainkunda. So, you find a number of Tanmang Jhakris at Kumbheshvor on this day. Jhakris in general are faith healers but only Tamang Jhakris visit Kumbheshvor after visiting Gosainkunda. Tamang is one of the hill ethnic groups in Nepal.

You also might go to Kumbheshvor on this day to change your sacred thread. At night Lord Kumbheshvor Mahadev is brought out from the five-tiered temple to a small pond not far from the temple, and place the lord at the center of the pond for all devotees to revere on the janaipurnima. A number of priests serve the devotees for changing sacred threads and tying sacred threads around the right hands of male and left hands of females. Nepalis believe that such sacred threads around their hands protect them from evil spirits until another five-day religious festival called Tihar in October when Nepalis revere crows, dogs, bulls and cows. On the day of revering cows, they take off the sacred thread from their hands and tie them to the tails of cows.

You need to wear a sacred thread to keep your high status in the society: that is one reason for wearing a sacred thread; another reason for wearing a sacred thread is that a sacred thread you wear holds all Hindu deities to protect you from evil spirits. So, don’t ignore to change the sacred thread but wear it for a year, keep it as chaste as possible. Hang it on your right ear when you go to a toilet or a rest room for a short or long one to detach it from your body. Thus, you keep it as virtuous as possible. If you don’t follow the code of Hindu ethics then all those deities might leave the thread making you vulnerably to the assaults of evil spirits.

If you are in the Middle East, Malaysia or any other country for a work then you might forget changing a sacred thread. Most probably you have left it home for keeping it safe for wearing it when you are back in Nepal. Don’t mind both the things; the day is the full moon day in July/August to change a sacred thread even if you are enjoying Ramadan or any festival in the country of your work. You should not forget your tradition or faith even though our government has smartly deleted the slot for religion in our passports but still you are following the faith you are born with.

If you are in Europe or America, you cannot go to any river there to change your sacred thread, as you do in Nepal. However, you might go to a nearest Hindu temple and ask a priest there to sanctify a thread and then wear it. You find Nepalese or Indian Hindu temple elsewhere there, and visit the one whichever is near to you.

You might not have been able to keep your body pure eating all sorts of food and drinking various sorts of beverages when you are abroad. Never mind it, keep wearing a sacred thread at least to show that you are still following the tradition. Keeping your body clean following the Hindu strict restriction of foods is almost impossible when you are in the counties where every dish is made of one kind of meat or another you are not supposed to eat. Don’t mind it. Even in Nepal you could not simply live eating Hindu meals only in the 21st century. The main thing is to keep our tradition alive.

To wear a sacred thread is to show off the status in the society. Our ancestors have divided the brothers of the same family to four different castes, and gave them different status. A brother preferring to read and write holy scriptures and abstaining from indulging in eating various foods that pollute the body, and keeping serene in life is called Brahmin, and gave him a highest status. Then the next brother not so eager to reading and writing scriptures but interested in playing with weapons and war games and shows bravery is called Chettri, gave him the second highest status. The third brother that eats everything and drink every possible beverage and not interested in reading scriptures, and in warfare but engaged in business, agriculture and crafts for earning living, gave him the third position in the society, and called him ‘Vaisya’. The last brother that does not want to do anything but provides the three brothers in hierarchy with all sorts of services required, and gave him the fourth position and called him ‘Sudra’.

The current Nepalese laws don’t differentiate the brothers belonging to the different status in our society. So, rumor has it that some of brothers belonging to the fourth status line up as the priests at Pashupati or Kalmochan or elsewhere in Kathmandu for providing the customers with ceremonial and religious services of changing a sacred thread on this day. Nobody could recognize the caste of a person from the physical features of anybody. However, they alleviate the shortage of priests required for changing the sacred threads of millions of Nepalis on this day.

Brahmin and Chettri of the Khas community and some Nevahs of the Nevah community wear sacred threads. They want to keep the tradition alive following all sorts of rites and rituals of changing a sacred thread and wearing it.

Our non-resident brothers have difficulty in even keeping the track of the day of changing a sacred thread because of the hectic daily life. They don’t have much time to think about anything if they are working on the hot sun of the Middle East or in the cold climate of European and American countries.

Our fellow brothers working in the Middle East have no way of changing their sacred threads. First of all they have no way of keeping the track of the day of changing a sacred thread because of the heavy load of work they have to do daily. Second, even though they know the day of changing a sacred thread they cannot do so. Most of them leave their sacred threads back home for safekeeping. They cannot certainly think of changing a sacred thread in the countries where they cannot pronounce even ‘H’ of Hindu if they want to keep their jobs. So, we have deleted the provision for religion in our passports to provide our brothers with camouflage.

If you strictly follow the rules of changing a sacred thread set by our ancestors then you need to shave your head including the eyebrow to clean your body. However, most of us born in the late twentieth century have already done away with such rituals even though we follow some of the tradition of changing a sacred thread. One thing is some of us continue to wear it after coming back to Nepal even after a gap of several years of staying abroad for study or work. This is the tradition we never forget. So, change your sacred thread on the full moon day of July/August and keep going the tradition.

Nepalis changed their sacred thread on August 2, 2012 this year.