"A sacred thread girdle (kûstîk), should it be made of silk, is not proper; the hair of a hairy goat and a hairy camel is proper, and from other hairy creatures it is proper among the lowly."[599]
Every Parsi wears "a triple coil" of a "white cotton girdle," which serves to remind him of the "three precepts of his morality—'good thoughts,' 'good words,' 'good deeds.'"[600]
Williams describes the sacred girdle of the Pārsīs as made "of seventy-two interwoven woollen threads, to denote the seventy-two chapters of the Yasna, but has the appearance of a long flat cord of pure white wool, which is wound round the body in three coils." The Pārsī must take off this kustī five times daily and replace it with appropriate prayers. It must be wound round the body three times and tied in two peculiar knots, the secret of which is known only to the Pārsīs.[601]
According to Picart, the "sudra," or sacred cord of the Pārsīs, has four knots, each of which represents a precept.[602]
Marco Polo, in speaking of the Brahmans of India, says: "They are known by a cotton thread, which they wear over the shoulders, tied under the arm, crossing the breast."[603]
Picart described the sacred cord of the Brahmans, which he calls the Dsandhem, as made in three colors, each color of nine threads of cotton, which only the Brahmans have the right to make. It is to be worn after the manner of a scarf from the left shoulder to the right side. It must be worn through life, and, as it will wear out, new ones are provided at a feast during the month of August.[604] The Brahman "about the age of seven or nine ... is invested with 'the triple cord,' and a badge which hangs from his left shoulder."[605]
The Upavita or sacred cord, wound round the shoulders of the Brahmans, is mentioned in the Hibbert Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion. "Primarily, the sacred cord was the distinguishing mark of caste among the Aryan inhabitants. It consisted for the Brahmans of three cotton threads; for the Kshatriyas or warriors of three hempen threads; and for the Vaisyas or artisans and tradesmen of woollen threads."[606]
"All coiling roots and fantastic shrubs represent the serpent and are recognized as such all over India. In Bengal we find at the present day the fantastically growing Euphorbia antiquorum regularly worshipped, as the representative of the serpent god. The sacred thread, worn alike by Hindoo and Zoroastrian, is the symbol of that old faith; the Brahman twines it round his body and occasionally around the neck of the sacred bull, the Lingam, and its altar.... With the orthodox, the serpent thread should reach down to its closely allied faith, although this Ophite thread idea is now no more known to Hindoos than the origin of arks, altars, candles, spires, and our church fleur-de-lis to Jews and Christians."[607]
General Forlong alludes to the thigh as the symbol of phallic worship. "The serpent on head denoted Holiness, Wisdom, and Power, as it does when placed on gods and great ones of the East still; but the Hindoo and Zoroastrian very early adopted a symbolic thread instead of the ophite deity, and the throwing of this over the head is also a very sacred rite, which consecrates the man-child to his God; this I should perhaps have earlier described, and will do so now. The adoption of the Poita or sacred thread, called also the Zenar, and from the most ancient pre-historic times by these two great Bactro-Aryan families, points to a period when both had the same faith, and that faith the Serpent. The Investiture is the Confirmation or second birth of the Hindoo boy; until which he can not, of course, be married. After the worship of the heavenly stone—the Sāligrāma, the youth or child takes a branch of the Vilwa tree in his right hand, and a mystic cloth-bag in the left, when a Poita is formed of three fibres of the Sooroo tree (for the first cord must always be made of the genuine living fibres of an orthodox tree), and this is hung to the boy's left shoulder; he then raises the Vilwa branch over his right shoulder, and so stands for some time, a complete figure of the old faiths in Tree and Serpent, until the priest offers up various prayers and incantations to Soorya, Savitri or Sot, the Eternal God. The Sooroo-Poita is then removed as not durable enough, and the permanent thread is put over the neck. It also is formed of three threads, each 96 cubits or 48 yards long, folded and twisted together until only so long that, when thrown over the left shoulder, it extends half-way down the right thigh, or a little less; for the object appears to be to unite the Caput, Sol, or Seat of intellect with that of passion, and so form a perfect man."[608]
All Parsis wear the sacred thread of serpent and phallic extraction, and the investiture of this is a solemn and essential rite with both sects [i.e., the Hindus and Parsis], showing their joint Aryan origin in high Asia, for the thread is of the very highest antiquity. The Parsi does not, however, wear his thread across the shoulder, and knows nothing of the all-but-forgotten origin of its required length. He wears it next to his skin, tied carefully round the waist, and used to tie it round his right arm, as is still the custom with some classes of Brahmins who have lost purity of caste by intermarriage with lower classes.[609]
At the baptism or investiture of the thread, which takes the place of the Christian confirmation ceremony, but between the ages of 7 and 9, Fire and Water are the great sanctifying elements, and are the essentials. The fire is kindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, then sprinkled over with holy water and blessed; and when so consecrated by the priest it is called "Holy Fire."[610]
"The Brahmans, the Rajas, and the Merchants, distinguish themselves from the various casts of Sudras by a narrow belt of thread, which they always wear suspended from the left shoulder to the opposite haunch like a sash."[611] But, as Dubois speaks of the division of all the tribes into "Right-hand and Left-hand," a distinction which Coleman[612] explains as consisting in doing exactly contrariwise of each other, it is not a very violent assumption to imagine that both the present and a former method of wearing the izze-kloth, akin to that now followed by the Apache, may once have obtained in India. The sectaries of the two Hands are bitterly antagonistic and often indulge in fierce quarrels, ending in bloodshed.[613]