As per the rules of anusthanams, before taking bath one must wear appropriate clothing (snanasaadi), perform sankalpam, etc. Considering the materialistic duties, it is not possible to do this elaborately due to lack of time. Hence, requesting to share a simpler way of following snana sankalpam. Which clothes (Snanasaadi) can be worn for bathing? As an example, can we use an angavastram of a torn dhoti?

The simpler or shorter form of snana sankalpam would be “Karmanyataa siddhyartham praatasnanam aham karishye”. But it is a practice to recite mahaa sankalpam for bathing. Having mentioned the tithi, day (vaaram), name of the year, month, one must recite “vishnoraagyaa pravarttamaanasya aadya bhramanaH” and begin the bathing. There is no maha sankalpam for sandhyavandanam, Tiruvaradhanam, etc. Hence, maha sankalpam must be performed at the start of the day during bathing.

The cloth that we wear while taking bath is called snanasaadi. Snanasaadi clothes are sold in shops. One can buy one of those. If not, there is no harm in using old dhoti, angavastram, etc. But after having used that old vastram as a snanasaadi vastram, they must not be used as an upper garment (uttariyam). snanasaadi is a lower body garment. Uttariyam is an upper-body garment used for japam. An old uttariyam can be used as a snanasaadi, but it must not be used as an uttariyam again.