 As an overview, sanskars have various psychosocial roles. Sanskars are self-expression, they are cultural and social integration mechanism, they have the moral purpose and they also have the spiritual purpose. The first point is sanskars as self-expression. That means, householders perform the sanskars to express their own joy, the felicitations and even sorrow at the various events of life. In the shape of decoration, music, feast, present, different rituals, these are expressions of all kinds of emotions, maybe emotions of joy when child is born and or emotions of grief when ante-sti sanskar is done when a family member dies. So, in all aspects, sanskars are mechanism and ways of self-expression. These sanskars have cultural and social integration function as well because each sanskar had the rituals which involves all sections of society. So, for example, marriage or viva sanskar cannot be completed without the help of barbers or goldsmith or the iron smith. Similarly, the namakaran sanskar cannot be completed without the role of a barber or washerman. So, like these different sections of society had different roles in most of the sanskars and this provides a mechanism of the integration of the different sections of the society. Sanskars also provide the identity to the different sections and this conveys the message that in the cycle of life, all the sections of society are important and inevitable. Sanskars as I briefly mentioned before also have moral purpose. So, gotama after enumerating 40 sanskars, I mentioned that gotama's classification also includes very extensive 40 sanskars. After enumerating all these, the hymn uttered by gotama meaning 8 good qualities of soul. Those qualities as mercy, forbearance, freedom from envy, purity, calmness, right behavior and freedom from greed and covetousness and Angira also mentions in his text that if all sanskars are done and these 8 qualities are not inculcated, then there is no value or meaning of these sanskars. However, if sanskars are not conducted and if somehow these 8 qualities are developed in the human being, that is better than having and that is better than getting conducted all the sanskars. So, there is a consciousness that behind the ritual there is a moral purpose and conducting certain rituals as described in the different sanskars processes, ultimately the purpose is to make a better human life, more contributing, more harmonious, harmonious within as well as harmonious without, harmonious with the externality and these messages are conveyed in the sanskars. Sanskars also have spiritual purpose. It was the business of sanskars to make body of valuable possessions. In most of the sanskars body, human body is well nourished, it is decorated, it is washed and body is conceived as a vehicle for the transpersonal experiences and realizations. So, body is not a thing to be discarded that message is conveyed very strongly in the sanskars, in the sanskars, but it is considered a holy thing to be sanctified so that it might be fitting instrument of the spiritual intelligence embodied in it. So, in all the rituals we come to know about certain hymns which keep conveying the ideas of adhyatmic purpose or spiritual purpose also behind the sanskars and it was the way in which active life of the world was reconciled with the spiritual realization. So, if you look at these sanskars, we see some of the very clear characteristics which are the characteristics of yogic tradition as well. Like yogic tradition which has body a very important instrument, body is sanctified in all the sanskars, even in the antehsti body is sanctified. Number 2, as yog talks about the positive emotions, when we look at the ashtanga yog includes positive emotions, positive behaviors and spiritual purpose in the same way all the sanskars are imbued with positive emotion, positive purpose and ultimately directed towards spiritual goals of life. But in this process they take care of all four purusharthas which are dharma meaning harmonious life or righteousness expressed in the righteousness, artha which is more like physical possessions or transactions, kam which is more psychological or sensuous pleasure and moksha which is spiritual enlightenment. In all 16 sanskars, all four aspects are taken care of and that is the reflection of the integral nature of yogic tradition. So, now we will look at yajna as the positive event. Yajna is described in a very essential manner by kathayana sattrasutra as that involves drabhyam, devata, tyaga. Now we will look at yajna as positive event, a simple definition of yajna given in the kathayana sattrasutra is yajna, yajaya, syamaha, drabhyam, devata, tyaga. Yajna is composed of three elements drabhyam meaning oblatory material which is to be offered, devata to whom it is offered that is loosely called diti and tyaga the process of giving away and giving away which you have rightfully earned offering that giving away that that is tyaga. The yajnas are conducted for various purposes related to the life goals, family goals or more social goals. For the householders five types of yajnas are prescribed, panchva, ete, maha, yajna, satati, pratayante, satati, santishthante, five types of yajna or five yajnas have to be observed completely and regularly, satati means regularly. What are those five yajnas, devayagya, pratayagya, bhudayagya, manushyagya, brahmayagya, eti, eti. That means these five types of yajnas have to be performed by all the householders every day. Pitrayagna is about taking care of your parents or forefathers. Vishyagnya is about taking care, having reverence and taking forward the knowledge tradition that is called Vishyagnya. Devayagnya have to be performed for the blessings of the powers which govern the nature, which govern the natural powers, fire, water, sunlight. So these are considered to be governed by higher powers, performing yajnas for the blessings of all these higher powers. Bhudayagnya is taking care of all the animate that is plants, animals as well as inanimates which are called pancha-bhutas in the day to day life. So bhutayagnya is actually taking care of all the nature around us and manushyagnya is towards fellow human being, being helpful for the fellow human beings and in this way supporting the society. So all these five yajnas are considered most essential yajnas of the householders. If we look at these five yajnas they reflect two things very prominently and that is why we can very clearly see these being positive events. These two elements of yajnas are systemic understanding of reality and gratitude. Systemic understanding of reality meaning the yajnas are conceived and particularly these five yajnas are conceived based on a very basic tenet that this life form or individual life form is sustained by and nourished by all other life forms. In the bodhic tradition it is called pratity samupadhyata, constant coerising. This is because that is. So dependence of any life form or my life form on all other life forms, family is dependent. So this body is dependent on family, family is dependent on community, community is dependent on a larger society, larger society is dependent on even larger society and in this way reality is nothing, life is nothing but a graded expressions of the more and more complexity. So lower form can be sustained only based on the higher forms. So that systemic understanding of reality is reflected in yoga. See there is a sense of gratitude, gratitude towards parents, teachers, higher powers, all fellow beings and whole of nature. Gratitude is considered one of the most important factors in the positive psychology in current times and in the form of yajna we see very simple rituals which are expression of those gratitudes. Third aspect of yajna particularly reflected in the 5th, the panche yajna is that the concept of systemic understanding of reality and gratitude are integrated with the normal course of action. So they are integrated with the day to day activities of life. So there are rituals like when food grain is harvested, some part is left for the birds, when food grain is processed, some part is given to the cow or dog or crow, some part is given to the ants like these at all stages of the preparation of food there is element of sacrifice. For different life forms, so sacrifice is essential nature of yajna. Literally speaking yajna means selfless sacrifice for the noble purpose, anything which is done for the higher purpose, anything which is done for the larger system is called yajna. And when this is performed it is not doing any favor it has to be done because that is the only mechanism of life. If we look at plants, rivers, birds and if we look at their contribution in the ecosystem they naturally contributed much more than what they get from the nature. But their contribution is done as per the part of the natural programming. They do not have to think much about how they do or do not contribute, they are natural part of the system and that contribution is naturally done. Human being have the discriminatory power. So they have to consciously put in effort to contribute towards society and contribute towards the larger ecosystem. So because of the discriminatory power, human beings have more responsibility. Responsibility is connected to the consciousness because consciousness is must to make a discrimination, distinction and for enhancing the consciousness we require sanskars and yajna. So if we look at the whole life programming it is deeply arising from the sense of responsibility of human being towards larger social and natural environment. Inherent in the sense of responsibility is also recognition of human power to be a destructive force or force for disturbance in the nature. So arising from the sense of responsibility we see in the yogic tradition many sanskars being identified which are systematic intervention to make a person a responsible member of the society and responsible member of the whole ecosystem. Yajna is a process of delivering that responsibility. Yajna is the process of performing that responsibility in a day to day activities. That's why yajna and sanskars are clubbed as positive events.