Samavartana Samskara: The Ritual Bath at the End of Studentship

Samavartana means “the returning” (sam is together, a-vartana the turning back). It is the fourteenth of the sixteen samskaras, and it marks the end of the student years: the young man, having completed his study under a teacher, takes a ceremonial bath, thanks the teacher and goes home to take up the life of a householder. After the bath he is called a snataka, “one who has bathed”, and the rite is also called snana (the bath).

It follows keshanta and comes before vivaha, marriage. The samskaras overview shows the whole sequence.

What the rite is

In the Grihya Sutras the rite takes place at the teacher’s house. The student has finished his study, and the teacher gives him permission to leave. The student bathes with water that has been prepared with herbs and prayers, in some accounts from a pitcher marked with sacred verses. He dresses in clean clothes and puts on new ornaments that were forbidden to him as a student: a garland, a pair of shoes, an umbrella, a turban or head cloth, earrings, and a staff of bamboo. The things he now takes are a mark of his new life, and the ones he leaves behind, the grass girdle and the deer skin, are a mark of the old one.

The student gives a gift (dakshina) to his teacher, as a thanks that cannot be measured, and the teacher gives him a farewell instruction. One famous farewell instruction survives in the Taittiriya Upanishad, in which the teacher tells the graduating student to speak the truth, follow dharma, not to neglect his study, to honour his mother, father, teacher and guest as divine, and so on. It is among the best-known statements of the ethic of the student and is still quoted in convocation addresses. We do not reproduce its exact wording, because translations differ, and we use it only to show the spirit of the rite.

When it is done

The rite takes place when the study is complete. The texts speak of twelve years for each Veda in the older ideal, and of a shorter time in practice, so the age varies, but it falls roughly in the late teens to the early twenties. The rite comes before marriage, and in the texts a man who has not completed it should not marry. The day is chosen with the panchang, as with other samskaras.

The steps as families perform them

For the few families and schools that hold the rite, a simple form follows the old one.

1. Permission. The student seeks the teacher’s permission to leave and receives his blessing.
2. Prayer. A lamp is lit, and Ganesha, Saraswati and the teacher are worshipped. A verse from the Taittiriya Upanishad, or a hymn such as the Sahana Vavatu mantra, is often recited.
3. The bath. The student bathes with water that has been blessed.
4. New clothes and ornaments. He dresses in new clothes, and may be given a garland, a ring or a pair of shoes, as a symbol of the new stage.
5. Dakshina. He gives a gift to the teacher, according to his means.
6. The farewell. The teacher gives words of advice, and the student returns home.

What the Dharmasutras and Grihya Sutras say

Gautama’s list of forty includes snana, the bath at the end of study, and speaks of the vows of the student that precede it. The Grihya Sutras describe the rite and the things the snataka takes. Manusmriti has a long discussion of the snataka’s duties. Here too the details differ between schools and we state only the outline.

How practice has changed

In the old ideal the rite closed twelve years of life with a teacher. In modern India very few students leave a gurukula in that way, but the ideas of the rite are alive in other forms.

• Convocation. The graduation ceremony of a university or school, with its gown, its address and its degree, is the closest modern parallel, and many Indian universities begin with a Sanskrit prayer.
• Guru dakshina. Students in classical music, dance and Vedic schools still give a gift, and sometimes a public performance, to the teacher at the end of the training. This is a living custom.
• A family blessing. Some families mark the end of study, or the first job, with a puja and a gift to a teacher.
• Vedic schools still hold samavartana for graduating students, and in a few institutions the ceremony is held as a ritual bath and a speech.

The ritual bath itself is simple and easy to keep. A student who has finished a stage of study may bathe, say a prayer and thank a teacher, and this is a rite of the same spirit.

Regional customs

• South India: in Vedic schools the closing ceremony is held with a homa, and the student’s family presents gifts to the teacher.
• Maharashtra and Karnataka: a student’s graduation from a Sanskrit school is marked with a public honouring.
• North India: the Arya Samaj holds a samavartana ceremony at the end of gurukula study, with a convocation and a speech.
• Across India: in classical arts, the arangetram or the first public performance marks the end of training.

A note on timing with marriage

In the texts the end of studentship opens the way to marriage, and some families still link the two. In a modern setting the two are separate events, and a person may study, work and marry in any order. The family astrologer can help when a marriage is being planned; see vivaha and the consultation page.

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