The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution
Patrick Olivelle, New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Patrick Olivelle, The Aasrama system:The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution,
New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Prologue.
…The two cornerstones of dharma are the systems of aasrama and varna (“social classes”). The totality of the Braahmanical dharma is often referred to simply as varnaasramadharma, an expression that modern scholars and native interpreters alike have seen as the closest approximation within the tradition to what we have come to call Hinduism: “Even now,” observes the eminent Indian sociologist G.S. Ghurye (1964,2), “Varnaasramadharma, duties of castes and aasramas, is almost another name for Hinduism.”—p.3
The aasrama system was created as a structure for inclusion—for finding a place within the Braahmanical world to ideologies and ways of life that challenged many of the central doctrines and values of that world…—p. 4
I Introduction: Meaning and Method (7-34)
I will argue that the aasrama system is primarily a theological construct. The system and its history, therefore, should be carefully distinguished from the socio-religious institutions comprehended by the system and from their respective histories..—p. 7
Hermeneutics and exegesis, as Jonathan Z. Smith (1982, 43-52) has convincingly argued, is at the heart of both religious traditions and, consequently, the task of all historians of religion, not just those of Christianity. He offers the telling example of food and cuisine. Human cultures reduce the vast number of potential sources of nutriment to an extremely small number of permissible food items and then use great ingenuity to prepare a bewildering variety of dishes from that number of permitted ingredients: “If food is a phenomenon characterized by limitations, cuisine is a phenomenon characterized by variegation” (Smith 1982, 40). Religions, likewise, limit the number of texts and stories that are considered authoritative, thereby forming “canons,” whether they (p.7) are relatively fixed and bounded as in the Judeo-Christian traditions or left vague and open as in most others. Hermeneutics, like cuisine, extends this arbitrary limit, applying the cannon according to well-defined rules of interpretation to every conceivable human situation.—pp.8-9
‘Within Braahmanism the hermeneutical enterprise is at the heart of law and theology….Novelty in doctrine, institution, or practice was not recognized. When new ideas and practices arose, as they were bound to, they challenged the hermeneutical ingenuity of theologians to find a basis for them in the known rules of Vedas and Smrtis….—p. 8
Etymologies are not always helpful guides to the meanings of words in actual use. Indeed, even the Indian hermeneutical tradition considered the conventional meaning of a word to have greater force than any meaning that may be derived from its etymology.3…—p. 8
3. Compare ruudhir yogam apaharati—”the conventional meaning ousts the etymological” and ruudhir yogaad baliiyasii—”the conventional meaning has greater force than the etymological” Cf. MK 6, 3327; MNP 98
…Then there is the story (SB 1.6.2.1-3) of the gods who managed to get to heaven by means of the sacrifice. Prior to that they had lived on earth in the company of humans. In an effort to prevent humans from following them to heaven, the gods erased all traces of the sacrifice on earth. The seers, however, searched for the sacrifice by praising (arcanath) and toiling (sraamyantah), “for by toil (srama) the gods indeed gained what they desired to gain, and so did the seers”…—p. 10
The toil and exertion of Prajaapati’s creative act carry clear sexual connotations; creation is procreation. The Taittiriiya Samhitaa (7.1.5.1) for example, explicitly refers to the sexual intercourse between Prajaapati and earth. He spread her out and “in her Prajaapati labored” (tasyaam asraamyat)…-pp. 10
…The Dhaatupaatha, the ancient list of Sanskrit verbal roots, for example, explains that the verb sram is used with reference to both religious austerity and fatigue.—pp. 10-11
…It appears that at least by the time of Asoka (middle of the third century B.C.E.) sramana was used principally, if not exclusively, with reference to non-Braahmanical ascetics. The compound word sramana-braahmana is used in Asokan inscriptions to indicate the double class of religious people worthy of honor and donations….—p.11
Fn. 14. See, for example, Winternitz 1926, 226. Thapar (1982, 276) writes: “The sramana, therefore, is one who labours towards an objective and aasrama was the process of doing so. Eventually the place where the sramanas gathered was also called aasrama.”—p.11
The Taittiriiya Aaranyaka belonging to the Black Yajurveda contains the earliest reference to sramana in Braahmanical literature:
The vaatarasana seers (rsi) were sramanas and celibates (uurdhvamanthinah)..
(vaatarasanaa ha vaa rsayah sramanaa uurdhvamanthino)—p.12
By the time of the Taittiriiya Aaranyaka, however, the meaning of the term vaatarasana appears to have undergone some changes. The author of this text uses the term no longer as an adjective but as a noun denominating a class of rsis…—p.13
…We need to search for its meaning within the context of the vedic use of the related terms sram and srama. Sramana in that context obviously means a person who is in the habit of performing srama. Far from separating these seers from the vedic ritual tradition, therefore, sramana places them right at the center of that tradition. Those who see them as non-Braahmanical, anti-Braahmanical, or even non-Aryan precursors of later sectarian ascetics are drawing conclusions that far outstrip the available evidences.
The use of the title rsi, moreover, demonstrates that the Vaatarasanas were not only regarded as Brahmins but also as part of the elite group of mythical ancestors who were the founders of the Braahmanical tradition. The use of the term sramana to describe them, however, indicates that they were a group of special people given to practices and a life style far from common. Taken together with the term vaatarasana and its historical link to the muni, we may not be too wrong in concluding that the adjective sramana referred to their uncommonly strenuous way of life.—p.14
…It is clear, however, that as in the Taittiriiya passage, so here [BaU 4.3.22] too sramanas belong to the Braahmanical tradition.—p.15
Samkara, for example, in his commentary on this passage (BaU 4.3.22) interprets the former as a samnyaasin and the latter as a vaanapratha. It is always a temptation to read earlier texts in the light of later classificatory schemes in imitation of the commentators, a temptation that historians must clearly guard against. The terms srama and tapas, as we have seen (section 1.1.1.), are often coupled in early texts to refer to two closely related sets of activities. The derivative nouns, sramana and taapasa, very likely are similarly coupled in this passage.—Fn.30, p. 15
Macdonell and Keith 1912, I, 68, translate it as “resting place,” and they are followed by Prabhu 1954, 83.Miller and Wertz (1976,6) more explicitly regard the word as a negative: “Aasrama, the negative of the Sanskrit root sram (to exert oneself), means ‘a place of peace.’” Strictly it could not be the negative, since the privative suffix is not “aa” but the short “a“.—Fn. 36, p. 16
Quite frequently Indian authors draw etymological relationships between words that have phonetic similarities. They then proceed to uncover semantic equivalences based on such phonetic etymologies. This is clearly a pedagogical strategy, and the authors’ intent is not to teach etymologies but to draw out what they regard as the innermost and the most significant meaning of a term. Given the advances made by Indian grammarians, it is quite likely tat these authors usually know the grammatically correct etymologies of the terms whose meanings they seek to elucidate through phonetic equivalences.—Fn. 38, p. 16
Those who wish to exalt the householder often use the argument that the householder’s life is far more difficult (duskara) than those of the other aasramas: MBh 12:20.6-14; 12.23.6; 12.261.58. Renouncers have an easy life (sramasyoparama: MBh 12.261.10), whereas the householders toil (srama: MBh 12.261.59). See also MDh 2.168 where srama as “religious exertion or toil” is used probably with reference to the aasramas.—Fn. 39, p. 16
Aasrama, we may conclude, refers to religious exertion. The term, however, is used in ancient Indian literature with two distinct but related meanings: it refers to both a residence for and a mode of life devoted to religious exertion….-p.17
…the more basic meaning of aasrama, I believe, is that of a residence for religious exertion. The term is used with reference to a mode of life mainly within the confines of the aasrama system…—p.17
…Ancient Indian thought closely associated a definite pattern of behavior or conduct with a specific place or region. A good example of this tendency is the claim that the customs prevailing in a region of north-central India called Aaryaavarta (“region of the Aaryas”) are to be regarded as authoritative on questions of dharma….—p.18
Given the close association between place of habitation and way of life, it did not require a giant semantic leap to call by the name aasrama the life of those who lived in aasramas. Conversely, we find that the modes of life of those belonging to the aasramas of student, householder, and hermit are often referred to by their respective residences: teacher’s house, home, and forest or wilderness…—p.18
…In what follows I expect to demonstrate that (1) aasrama did not refer to ascetic habitats or modes of life, if by ascetic we understand values and institutions that oppose the Braahmanical value system centered around the householder; (2) on the contrary, aasrama is fundamentally a Braahmanical concept and refers to habitats and life styles dedicated to the principal obligations of a Braahmanical householder; (3) originally and outside the context of the aasrama system, nevertheless, the term did not refer to simply any householder but to exceptional Brahmins who dedicated their lives in an extraordinary manner to religious exercise (srama), living, in all likelihood, in areas somewhat removed from villages and towns.—p.19
…In the epics, too, residents of aasramas are occasionally identified as sramana. These, however, are not sufficient grounds for concluding that aasrama originally meant the residence or life style of Braahmanical sramanas, if this is taken to mean Braahmanical ascetics living celibate lives in the wilderness. Indeed, within the Braahmanical context both sramana and aasrama are associated with the activity central to the Braahmanical view of dharma, namely the sacrifice.—p.19
One reason why scholars have attempted to find a connection between aasrama and anti-Braahmanical ascetical institutions is the prevalent but mistaken view that the aasrama system was created by Brahmins to stem the tide of the ascetical movement by coopting into the Braahmanical system the very institutions that opposed it (p19) If aasrama was an ascetic concept, the argument goes, then its use with reference to the Braahmanical householder is meant to indicate that a householder’s life is as good as an ascetic’s. The very opposite, as we shall see (section 3.3.4), appears to have been the case. The authors of the aasrama system were coopting a good Braahmanical term to indicate that the ascetic life was as good as the ideal Braahmanical life expressed by the term aasrama.—pp.19-20 —–Rev
…As we have noted, it is absent in the early Braahmana texts, and even the Dharmasuutras never use it in their discussion of the householder outside the narrow confines of the aasrama system. The term is conspicuous by its absence in the early Grhyasuutras, which deal specifically with domestic rites including marriage. If it was a common term for a Braahmanical householder, moreover, we may expect to find it with that meaning Buddhist and other non-Braahmanical sources.—p.20
The evidence from Braahmanical and Buddhist sources, in fact, indicates that aasrama probably had just such a restricted meaning. It appears that the term was applied not to just any householder but to the place and/or life of a very special category of Braahmanical householders…-p.20
What is significant for our study, however, is that the life of the aasrama-dwelling Brahmins was much closer to that expected of all Braahmanical householders than to later ascetic modes of life, and that in its early usage aasrama defined more the ideal life of a Brahmin householder than that of an ascetic….This meaning, furthermore, closely follows the meaning of srama in the vedic literature, leading further support to its priority.—p. 22
I am aware that social institutions themselves, such as marriage, are cultural constructs. The distinction here is between such cultural constructs and their further theological definitions and evaluations. The primary cultural construct, e.g., marriage, may exist as a social institution shared by all in a given society, whereas the theological construct, e.g., marriage as an aasrama, may be accepted by only a subgroup within that society. The one cannot be equated with the other. A similar process of theological evaluation occurs in the Christian sacrament of marriage.—Fn.68, p.24
The following assumptions regarding the meaning of the aasrama system govern the method and content of this study. (1) The system originated as a theological construct and aasrama in its technical usage within the system is a theological concept. The system, therefore, is only indirectly related to the institutions which are the subject of its theological evaluation. (2) Over time the aasrama system underwent significant changes as it evolved from its original formulation to its classical formulation enunciated in the law book of Manu. (3) In both formulations, but especially in the classical, the theological evaluations resulted in legal prescriptions that sought to regulate both the social institutions comprehended by the system and the manner in which individuals lead their lives. The system thus assumed some characteristics of a social institution within the confines of the Braahminical mainstream.—pp.24-25
…The institutions of the vedic student and the married householder, and in all likelihood also those of the forest hermit and the wandering mendicant, existed prior to the creation of the aasrama system. Even after its creation these institutions continued to exist in large sections of Indian society quite independently of that system.—p.25
…The discussions of vedic initiation, the duties of a student, marriage, and the duties of a householder are carried out in the these early Braahmanical documents with no reference to the aasrama system. 69 Indeed, many significant Braahmanical texts of this period, such as the Dharmasuutras of Baudhaayana and Gautama, explicitly rejected the theological basis of the system. Even the proponents of the system, moreover, regarded these four institutions as aasramas only with reference to Brahmins, or at the most with reference to twice-born Aaryas. It is clear, for example, that these early proponents did not regard the condition of a Suudra householder as an aasrama. 70 the same is true even in later periods with regard to lay members of sectarian traditions, such as Buddhists and Jains.—p.25
69. Pandey (Pandey R.B. 1969. Hindu Samskaaras: Socio-Religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, p.8) is clearly wrong when he says that “the Dharmasuutras deal with the Varnas (castes) and the Aasramas (stages of life). It is under the Aasrama-Dharmas that the rules about the Upanayana [initiation] and Vivaaha [marriage] are given exhaustively.” This is an example, as we shall see by no means unique, of reading into older texts classificatory systems from a much later period.—p.25
70. This is, of course, all the more true in the case of foreigners (mleccha). It was at a much later period that the aasramas were distributed among the four classes and the Suudras were made eligible for membership in the second aasrama. See VaiDh 1.1 and section 7.2—p.25
Unlike its companion terms varna (“class”) and jaati (“caste”), therefore, aasrama neither is coextensive with nor refers directly to social institutions. The former terms are universally recognized in India; they are not confined to a sect or a tradition. Caste, just like a personal name, is a term of both self-identity and social identity….Aasrama, on the contrary, is a concept that operates within the confines of Braahmanism, and even within those confines the aasrama system was aimed at imparting a theological meaning to and at making a theological evaluation of several Braahmanical modes of life. The self-identity or the social identity of the individuals in the institutions encompassed within the system is not necessarily determined by this theological evaluation of those institutions. The theological nature of the system is underscored, moreover, by the total lack of reference to it in non-Braahmanical sources.—p.26
…To call a mode of life an aasrama, therefore, was to give that life a theological meaning within the context of dharma. It meant more specifically that vedic injunctions provided for such a mode of life and that it was as legitimate and as ideal a life style as the primordial aasrama of the rsis. The proponents of the system, in effect, were telling their Braahmanical audience that the life of a celibate ascetic or student is as good as the life of a holy householder.73
73. In later literature there are examples of a similar extension of aasrama, this time from its normal meaning within the system to other non-aasramic behavior. Thus the Mahaabhaarata (12.65.6-7) says that the dharma of a Ksatriya is truly an aasrama.—p.26
…Baudhaayana (BDh 2.11.9), one of the earliest sources for the aasrama system, calls the aasramas “a fourfold division of dharma.” and throughout its history the system has been regarded as a classification of dharma that parallel its older classification into the four varnas.
The semantic extension of terms to entities not covered by their original meanings is a phenomenon not unique to aasrama. As we shall see (sections 2.1.3-4), similar extensions are found in the famous doctrines of the three debts and the five great sacrifices. Such semantic extensions are meant to impart new theological meanings and values to activities and institutions by associating them with other well-known elements of the Braahmanical world. Calling something a sacrifice, for example, gave it a specific value and required those who shared that world to relate to it as they would to a sacrifice. Similar semantic extensions occurred when Buddhists appropriated the word dharma and when Buddhist and Braahmanical theologians wrote about the “true Brahmin.” The architects of the aasrama system appear to have put the term aasrama to similar use.—p.27
The nature of its objects, we would readily agree, should determine the method of our study. In the preceding discussion (and in the second part of this book) I argue that the aasrama system is primarily a theological construct aimed at a theological evaluation of several socio-religious institutions, and that aasrama in its technical usage within the system is a theological concept. Four major points regarding method emerge from that discussion. (1) It is necessary to distinguish carefully the history of the aasrama system from the histories of the several institutions comprehended by that system. Conversely, it is methodologically improper to assume the existence of the aasrama system whenever a source happens to mention one, some, or even all of these institutions. (2) In investigating the origin of the aasrama system and the motives for and the historical circumstances surrounding its creation, we should take as our basis solely the earliest known formulation of the system. Later formulations may provide insights into the development of the system but not into its origin. (3) Given the theological nature of the system, normative and overtly theological texts are proper sources for tracing its history. We must be careful, I repeat, not to confuse the history of the system with that of the institutions, for whose histories the evidence contained in those sources should be used with great caution. (4) The theological scheme of aasramas follows the general conventions of Braahmanical hermeneutics. It is necessary to pay sufficient attention to the hermeneutical bases of the system if we are to properly evaluate the history of the system and its relationship to other Braahmanical institutions.—p.28
The four aasramas, as we have seen, are not coextensive with the respective social institutions classified by the system….(p.28) each class of the system does not correspond to a single social institution, and that the system imposes its own tidy classification on an ill-defined mass of institutions and observed behaviors.—pp.28-29
…It is thus improper to claim as many scholars do, for example, that the first two aasramas are known from early vedic times; it is not these aasramas but the institutions of vedic studentship and marriage that are so known.80
80. This methodological error is so pervasive that it can be found in most studies. Pande (1978,5): “The first two aasramas are implied in the whole Vedic religion.” Ghosh Chaudhury (1967,130): “Brahmacharya and Garhasthya—these two stage of the Asrama system were originally prevailing in the Vedic life. Dispute arises about the origin of the 3rd and 4th Asramas.” Lingat (1973,47): “The first two stages, however, are known from the Vedas onwards.” Basu (1969, 225): “In the Samhitaa and the Brs. [Braahmanas] we do not find explicit mention of the third and fourth orders, viz,–forest life ad the life of a recluse. The remaining two orders, viz, studentship or brahmacarya and the domestic life, gaarhasthya have been mentioned in clear terms.” The entire argument of Gangadharan 1976 for the antiquity of the aasrama system is based don this confusion. A similar confusion, likewise, underlies Kakar’s (1968) study.—p.29
According to the most ancient formulation of the system presented in the Dharmasuutras, a formulation that I will examine in the third chapter, the aasramas are not stages but rather permanent modes of life open to any young adult who has completed his period of vedic education. Within this formulation the temporary period of studentship following vedic initiation was not considered an aasrama. It was four or five centuries later, around the beginning of the common era, that the classical formulation of the system appeared (see section 5.1), and it was only within that formulation that the aasramas came to be considered stages of life through which a person was expected to pass.85—p.30 ———–Rev
85….The division of human life into different periods such as youth, adulthood, and old age surely could have taken place outside the context of the aasrama system, as evidenced by the ChU 3.16.1-6, which divides the human life span into three parts of 24 years, 44 years, and 48 years, homologizing them with the sacrificial libations of Soma offered in the morning, afternoon, and evening, respectively. A similar threefold division of life unrelated to the aasramas is found in Vaatsyaayana’s Kaamasuutra, 1.2.1-6.—pp.30-31
Fn.86. Most introduction to Indian religion, law, and culture merely present this classical formulation in their discussion of the aasrama system as if it were the only formulation of the system:…-p.31
This example illustrates the disconcerting fact that advances in the human sciences take generations to be incorporated into general scholarship, and that errors assume the quality of undisputed facts when they are repeated a sufficient number of times in influential works.—p.33
…The function of normative and theological texts in historical reconstruction has been a constant problem in the study of religious history. It is foolhardy to dismiss them completely and naive to accept their evidence as historical fact.—p.33
…it is appropriate to use theological and normative sources in reconstructing its history. It is simplistic to assume that only “events” are historical. Attempts at theoretical and theological self-understanding are as much a part of the history of a culture as wars and dynasties….—p.33
The problem with many previous studies on the aasramas is not their use of normative literature but that they confuse the aasramas with the corresponding social institutions and attempt naively to reconstruct the history of these institutions using theological sources that deal with the aasrama system.—p.33
Theological texts, furthermore, in spite of their normative intentions, are documents composed by human beings within specific historical settings. Clearly the authors of these, however theologically motivated they may have been, were children of their times, and their writings should provide some clues to the social context in which they lived and wrote. Irrespective of the intentions of their authors, therefore, these texts are in fact historical documents and contain evidence regarding the time in which they were composed. If they are read with some sophistication they can and do provide historically valuable information regarding dogma and institutions about which they pretend to provide normative and often atemporal information and rules. Those who dismiss theological and religious literature as irrelevant for historical purposes are throwing out the baby with the bath water.—p.33
The history of the aasrama system, therefore, is primarily the history of a theology. And the history of this theology is primarily the history of Braahmanical hermeneutics as applied to alleged conflicts between vedic injunctions that serve as the basis for the legitimacy of alternate modes of life.—p.34
2. Background and Context
…the aasrama system…was created as a hermeneutical device to incorporate socio-religious changes within the vedic world…—p.35
…vedic literature was produced by and, for the most part, intended for the Braahmanical elite. This literature, therefore, provides us with just one, and a somewhat narrow, window into that complex society….Males occupy the central position within the religious framework of the Vedas; for the most part, females are ignored and enter theological discourse only as they relate to men as wives, mothers, or daughters.—p.36
Fn.2. The Aryans immigrated into northwestern India during the second millennium B.C.E. Their descendants, who composed the vedic literature and who constituted the dominant classes within vedic society, had lost all memory of that immigration by their ancestors. The term Aryan is used here as a cultural and linguistic rather than a racial designation. Intermarriage surely wiped out any “racial purity” at a very early period. Even though occasionally there are racial overtones. I believe that the term is used principally as a cultural rather than a racial demarcation in the vedic and other Indian literature.—p.36
The Braahmanas identify the sacrifice with a new and somewhat artificial creator god, Prajaapati.7 He is both the sacrifice personified and the performer of the sacrifice from which the whole of creation proceeds. Not just humans and the physical universe but even gods derive their being from Prajaapati and the sacrifice (TS 7.1.5.1)—p.37
7. “The basis of the whole system is the identification of the sacrifice with Prajaapati, who is the creator par excellence” (Keith 1925,445). On the role of Prajaapati in vedic theology, see Gonda 1984, 1986; Levi 1898, 13-35; Oldenberg 1919, 26-32l Buardeay 1969m 14-23; Smith 1989, 54-69.—p.37
10. The exact meaning of “immortality” (amrta) is not clear. As Collins (1982,42-44) points out, in this context the term probably means the freedom from death and the indefinite continuation of existence, which is different from the deathless state envisaged within the later concept of moksa (absolute freedom). Moksa transcends both life and death, which as inseparable correlatives constitute samsaara (life subject to repeated births and deaths), a concept that by definition assumes the indefinite continuation of existence.—p.37
12. “The sacrifice is the very self [or the body] of the gods”—yajna u devaanaam aatmaa: SB 8.6.1.10. “The sacrifice is the self of all the gods”—sarvesaamdevaanaam aatmaa yajnah. SB 14.3.2.1….-p.38
…One delightful story (SB 2.3.4.4) informs us that the gods decided to leave earth after becoming disgusted with humans who importuned them constantly for favors. To prevent those people from following them, the gods obliterated all traces of the sacrifice on earth. They were determined to deny humans access to the knowledge of the sacrifice. The vedic seers (rsi), however, discovered that knowledge and through the medium of the Vedas handed it down to future generations. 13—p.38
13. TS 6.3.10.2; 6.5.3.1; AitB 2.1; SB 1.6.2.1-3; 3.1.4.3; 3.2.2.2, 11,28; 3.4.3.15; 3.7.1.27…-p.38
…The sacrifice indeed is identified with the heavenly world; heaven is actually localized on earth on the ground where the sacrifice is performed.—p.38
The sacrifice is considered a new birth for the sacrificer. The ceremony of consecration diiksaa for a sacrifice symbolically represents the sacrificer’s death and new birth…-p.38
…The Jaiminiiya Braahmana (3.14.8) states explicitly that a man remains unborn until he has sacrificed and has been born through the sacrifice: “Unborn, indeed, is a man so long as he does not sacrifice. It is through the sacrifice that he is born, just as an egg first burst.” The final sacrifice of a man—the cremation of his body in his sacrificial fire—is similarly viewed as a new birth in which Agni, the fire god, becomes his father (SB 2/3/3/5; 12.5.1.13). The Satapatha Braahmana (11.2.1.1) thus refers to the three births of a man: the first from his parents, the second from the sacrifice, and the third from the cremation fire.—p.39
32. RV 10.85.36. Again at 3.53.4 the RV states: “Wife is the true home”—jaayed astam. The MBh (12.144.66) echoes the same thought: “The home is not the house, they say, but the housewife”—na grham grham ity aahu grhinii grham ucyate.—p.41
…The wife is one half of the husband (TS 6.1.8.5), because so long as a man is without a wife he remains childless and incomplete:
A full half of one’s self is one’s wife. As long as one does not obtain a wife, therefore, for so long one is not reborn and remains incomplete. As soon as he obtains a wife, however, he is reborn and becomes complete. (SB 5.2.1.10; Cf. SB 8.7.2.3)—p.42
34….Although “son” often refers to offspring in general, the male child is the offspring par excellence: “the wife is a friend, a daughter brings grief, but a son is a light in the highest heaven” (AitB 7.13)….-p.42
‘…The sexual act is called a fire sacrifice (agnihotra: B 11.6.2.10). The Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad (6.4.3) homologizes the various parts of a woman with elements of the sacrifice: “Her vulva is a sacrificial altar; her pubic hairs, the sacrificial grass; her skin, the soma-press, and her labia, the fire in the middle.” Sexual intercourse is a Soma sacrifice: “As great indeed as the world gained by one who performs a Soma sacrifice, is the world gained by one, who with this knowledge, engages in sexual intercourse” (Baau 6.4.3)…-p.45
The belief that a son saves or rescues (traati) his father is expressed in etymologies, often far-fetched, of putra, the Sanskrit term for son. In this context the son rescues the father not from death but from evil worlds in which he may end up after death. It is already hinted at in the transmission (sampratti) passage of the Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad (1.5.17): “Whatever wrong has been done by him, his son frees him from all that. Therefore, he is called putra (‘son’).” Later literature takes the term putra to be a compound word made of put and traa (“to rescue”). Put is said to be the name of a hell, although the term does not occur outside this context. A son (putra) receives his name, therefore, because he saves his father from the Put hell.52—p.46
52…Yaaska in Nirukta, (2.11) gives two possible etymologies: putrah puru traayate niparanaad vaa pun narakam tatas traayata iti vaa—”a son is so called because he rescues often by offering oblations to the manes, or because he rescues from the hell called Put.”—p.46
All culturally created worlds, however, are intrinsically unstable (Berger 1969,29). They are constantly challenged by new experiences and by individuals and groups seeking new meanings….even within the Braahmanical tradition not everyone appears to have agreed with the centrality given to sacrifice and procreation and that some segments of that society were seeking new meanings of life and death. A challenge to sacrifice, for example, forms the likely background of a significant passage in the Satapatha Braahmana (1.2.5.24), even though it is presented within the context of a minor ritual violation:
Then unbelief (asraddhaa) took hold of men. They said: “Those who sacrifice become more sinful, while those who do not sacrifice become more excellent.” Thereupon no sacrificial oblations reached the gods from here, or the gods subsist on what is (p.46) offered from here. Now, the gods said to Brhaspati Aangirasa: “Unbelief indeed has taken hod of men. Ordain the sacrifice for them.”
The sacrifices, these “unbelievers” may have argued, are more important to gods than to men, for gods depend on them for their subsistence. It is precisely such an “unbelief” that the Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad (1.4.10) supports:
In the beginning this was just Brahman, and it knew only itself, thinking “I am Brahman.” Therefore it became all. Whoever among he gods came to realize this, only he became that. So also is it in the case of seers and men….So even now whoever knows that, thinking “I am Brahman,” becomes all this. Even the gods cannot prevent his becoming that, for he is their very self. So whoever worships another divinity than himself thinking “I am one and he is another,” he knows not. Just as an animal is for men, so is he for the gods. As indeed many animals serve a man, so does each man serve the gods. Even if one animal is taken away, it causes displeasure; how much more, if many? It does not please the gods, therefore, that men should know this.
With regard to procreation, the long discourse of Naarada (Ait B 7.13) ….above is clearly directed against those who belittled the religious significance of a son, as when he asks rhetorically:
What is the use of dirt and deer skin?
What profit in beard and austerity?
Seek a son, O Brahmin,
He is the world free of blame.—pp.46-47
…The view that considered sacrifice and offspring as debts to gods and forefathers, therefore, was considerably older and more widespread than the two texts of the Yajurveda—the Taittiriiya Samhitaa [6.3.10.5] and the Satapatha Braahmana [1.7.2.1-6]—in which it finds systematic formulation.—p.49
59. Saayana explains that a son pays the vedic debt relating to the fathers, as well as the secular debt, no doubt referring to the obligation of children to pay the debts incurred by their fathers. Chatterjee (1971,86) sees here only a reference to the obligation of a son “to discharge debts incurred by father.” See also Sprokhoff 1979, 389).—p.49
An important feature of the theology of debts is that a man becomes indebted by the mere fact of his birth. This stands in sharp contrast to the normal understanding that a debt is contracted by a deliberate action of an adult. Saayana (on SB 1.7.21) recognizes the definition of debt in this theology when he says that “birth alone is the cause of indebtedness” (rnate jananam eva nimittam). The texts do not throw any light on the mechanism through which a man falls into debt at birth. There is no myth of origin that would give us some clues. Unlike the Judeo-Christian doctrine of original sin, the debts one incurs at birth, on the one hand, are not caused by some act committed by one’s ancestors, and, on the other, affect only twice-born males. The manner in which debts are inherited, furthermore, contradicts the ideology of karma.63 While the doctrine of karma insists that people reap what they sow, the doctrine of debts asserts that twice-born men become burdened with debts without any deliberate act on their part. Further, even though debts are incurred immediately upon birth, the tradition is unanimous that their payment can only be made when the individual is able and qualified to do so: the payment of the debt to the seers requires vedic initiation, and the payment of the debts to gods and forefathers presupposes marriage.
It appears, therefore, that the concept of debt was given a new meaning in this theology and that it was used to illustrate and define the obligations of ritual actors—namely adult males—in the context of their relationship to significant individuals who play central roles in the vedic world. The inhabitants of this world—including gods, ancestors, seers, and other human and non-human beings—live in a web of interdependent relationships which create reciprocal rights and obligations. The obligations of twice-born adult males, who are the principal actors in the social world, are here singled out and defined as debts.—p.50
63. In all likelihood, the theology of debts predates the origin of karma and rebirth as significant explanatory concepts in Indian theodicy.—p.50
The most obvious difference is that the TS enumerates only three debts, whereas the SB gives four, with the addition of the debt of hospitality to men. The exegetical tradition and the later legal literature, however, take into account only the three debts of the TS and generally ignore the SB formulation….65—p.51
65. A notable exception is the MBh. At. 1.111.12-14 it speaks of four debts—to gods, seers, ancestors, and men—and at 12.174.13 it alludes to the duty to please gods, ancestors, seers, and Prajaapati. Guests replace seers in the three debts at 12.25.6. Twice the MBh refers to five debts (12.281.9-11; 13.37.18).—p.51
The person who incurs the debts is a Brahmin in the TS and “whoever exists” (yo’sti) in the SB (Sprockhoff 1979,389). Malmoud expresses his astonishment at the cruel paradox of the SB where all are born in debt while only the twice-born can pay the debts to gods and seers. Once does not have to be an Indian exegete to see that this is a false dilemma caused by reading too much into the wording of SB. It is quite unlikely that the priestly author of the SB wanted to make a statement about human beings or human nature in general. Vedic authors, just like their later dharmasaastric counterparts, normally address only the twice-born males, who alone are qualified to participate fully in the vedic religion….Now, the obligations to sacrifice and to study the Vedas exist only for twice-born men; other men and all women are forbidden to undertake these activities….—p.51
The word “Brahmin” in the TS version, likewise, has been interpreted by Indian exegetes such as Sabara (on PMS 6.2.31) as including all three twice-born classes. This need not be viewed as a purely scholastic interpretation, because in most Braahmanical texts the terms braahmana and dvija (“twice-born”) are used interchangeably….-p.51
…The sacrifices to the bhuutas is something completely new. It appears to be an extension of the debt of hospitality from human to non-human beings.—p.54
The other significant feature of the great sacrifices is that they are considered sacrifices. This theology is one more instance of the common tendency in Braahmanism to conceive any activity of value in terms of sacrifice. We have see already the extension of the concept of sacrifice to procreation. “Sacrifice” becomes the currency for appraising the value of an activity. In later literature many religious and devotional acts, and even acts of military heroism, are measured by that currency; one practice may be worth a hundred Soma sacrifices, and another a thousand horse sacrifices!–p.54
…At a much later date, Manu (MDh 3.73-74) gives each of the five great sacrifices a specific sacrificial appellation mostly derived from the verbal root hu (“to sacrifice”): ahuta (“not offered in the fire” = vedic recitation), huta (“burnt oblations to gods”), prahuta (“offered by scattering” = bali), braahmyahuta (“offered in Brahmins”=hospitality), and praasita (“eaten”=oblation to the manes).—p.54
The married householder [debt & sacrifice], therefore, represents the ideal religious life within the vedic world…It is this theology of religious life which was rejected by the ascetical traditions and which was challenged and modified by the aasrama system.—p.55 ——–Rev
Cities, kings, and the merchant class contributed to the rise of individualism, a factor of great significant for our study. Dumont (1960) has argued that vedic thought lacked (p.57) the concept of the individual; it was the group that gave the individual conceptual reality. Caste ideology stressed the centrality of the group at the expense of the individual. Even though Dumont’s dichotomy between the lack of the individual in the world and the centrality of the individual in the institution of world renunciation may not present a totally accurate picture of the individual in Indian history, nevertheless he is right in pointing out the marginal status of the individual in the mainstream of vedic thought. Among the factors that contributed to the discovery of the individuals as a central concept in religious and social thought both within and outside the institution of world renunciation was undoubtedly the emergence of urban culture….86—pp.57-58
86 Thapar 1978, 70; 1979, 179-82; Ling 1976, 72-77. Weber (1964, 80-85) also sees the urban elites as the careers of ethical rationalization in most societies, including the ancient Indian.—p.58
The individualistic spirit permitted also the creation of the first voluntary organization in India. The Buddhist and Jain monastic orders are the earliest available examples of such organizations. People entered them because they wanted to, because they had taken a personal decision regarding how they wanted to live their lives. They were not following a set pattern for correct living ritualized in life-cycle ceremonies. They exercised the same individual initiative at the religious level that kings and merchants exercised in the political and economic fields. Such non-conformity and voluntarism are less likely to appear within village communities, and the institutionalization of non-conformist modes of life in mendicant orders was certainly facilitated by the new urban environment. Food surplus, which is at the heart of city life, also made possible the rise of these economically unproductive organizations which were maintained by the surplus and generosity of the population. The freedom to choose is at the heart of both the challenges to the vedic religious ideal and the theology of the original aasrma system that permitted a choice (section 3.1.1) among several modes of religious life.
…the challenges to the vedic world came not just from those outside the Braahmanical tradition, such as the Buddha, but also from people within that tradition.
There appear to have been tensions and rivalries between the traditional Brahmins of the villages, who were the heirs and guardians of the vedic world, and the newly urbanized Brahmins. Several Dharmasuutras, which generally reflect the mentality of the conservative tradition, advise Brahmins not to visit cities (AapDh 1.32.21; BDh 2.6.31-34). (p.59) Some establish a permanent prohibition against reciting the Vedas in a town or a city.87 As the Upanisads show, other Brahmins had no qualms about attending and officiating at court rituals and participating in disputations conducted in royal assembly halls:–pp.59-60
87. GDh 16.43; VaDh 13:11. AapDh 1.9.4 prohibits the recital of the Veda in a nigama, which Ghosh (1973,46) has clearly shown to mean a market town.—p.60
…Most urban Brahmins probably remained within their tradition, but challenged and changed it from within It is these changes, and not primarily the threat posed by non-Braahmanical groups as assumed by many scholars, that I believe were the catalysts for the creation of the aasrama system (section 3.3.1-4)….-p.60
…They [Upanisads] are difficult documents to analyze because they are anthologies that contain texts of diverse nature and different provenance….The ideas and attitudes expressed in them, especially their anti-ritual and pro-celibacy stance, (p.60) make it likely that they originated within a socio-economic background similar to that of Buddhism and Jainism. In other words, I think that the new doctrines of the Upanisads were urban products.90 pp. 60-61
90. This does not mean, however, that the upanisadic collections themselves or their transmission within the vedic schools were carried out in urban settings. I refer only to the new doctrines contained in these complex documents.—p.61
…Many scholars have long argued that the major upanisadic doctrines were the product of the nobility. The Upanisads themselves present several doctrines as known only to the nobility and record many instances when kings became teachers of Brahmins, inverting the established ritual patters. Deussen articulates this position clearly:
We are forced to conclude, if not with absolute certainty, yet with a very high degree of probability, that as a matter of fact the doctrine of the aatman, standing as it did in such sharp contrast to all the principles of the Vedic ritual, though the original conception may have been due to Braahmans, was taken up and cultivated primarily not in Braahman but in Kshatriya circles, and was first adopted by the former in later times.
…..
In this light, what appeared a problem for those scholars who upheld the noble provenance of upanisadic doctrines, namely why Brahmins should have preserved and handed down these stories that belittled them ceases to be a problem at all. I would (p.61) argue that it was precisely the Brahmin partisans of these doctrines who stood to gain by such stories. Aligning with kings gave their doctrines a new status and prestige and served to distinguish them from the old doctrines. What these stories of kings teaching new doctrines to Brahmins point to, I believe, is the divide that existed within the Brahmin tradition between the village Brahmins clinging to the old ritual religion and urbanized Brahmins92 who were part of an emerging new symbolic world. Both the anti-ritual doctrines of the Upanisads and, as we shall see, the aasrama system probably originated within the latter class of Brahmins.—pp.61-62
92. By “urbanized Brahimns” I do not means Brahmins who actually lived in cities, but those who had come under the influence of the new urban civilization, irrespective of where they actually resided.—p.62
….(The Emergence of a New World) Its principal components were the following: (1) samsaara: human existence is subject to rebirth and it is a state of bondage and suffering; (2) karma: ritual and moral actions determine the rebirth process and contribute to the continuation of human bondage; and (3) moksa: liberation from samsaara is the ultimate goal to which all religious efforts should be directed. Most religious traditions of India accept these as axiomatic; their disagreements center on the nature of human bondage and release….One claims that the human predicament is due to a lack of understanding, and freedom can come only from acquiring the proper gnosis. The other locates the problem in human actions (karma) and/or intentions, and prescribes a path of self-control and asceticism. Elements of both viewpoints are usually found in the same tradition.
…Within the Braahmanical tradition, the most common, the most basic, and the most significant dimension of karma is the ritual act….(p.62) Within the Braahmanical theology of renunciation (samnyaasa), consequently, the elimination of karma means principally the elimination of rites, and renunciation is defined precisely as the abandonment of ritual activities. The theology of karma in the new world is thus at total variance with the theology of sacrificial karma in the vedic world.
The heavenly worlds that formed the context of the sacrificial theology are now reduced to being components of samsaara. Rebirth follows upon death for both gods and humans, and sons and funeral offerings cannot assure ultimate bliss. This is an individualist ideology in which both the situation after death and final liberation are determined by what an individual does and knows and not by intermediaries, whether priests or heirs.—pp.62-63
…The Mundaka Upanisad (1.1.4-5) elsewhere denies the authority of the Vedas:
Two kinds of knowledge are to be known, as, indeed, the knowers of Brahman declare—the higher as well as the lower. Of these the lower is the Rgveda, the Yajurveda, the Saamaveda, the Atharvaveda, phonetics, ritual, grammar, etymology, metrics, and astrology. And the higher is that by which the Undecaying is apprehended.—p.64
Most discussions of the contrast between village and wilderness have assumed that “village” symbolized society and civilization. That may well be true, but still it is the village and not the town or city that is so contrasted. This point becomes significant because the literature that contains this contrast was probably of urban origin, and the ascetics and the ascetic ideologies that were identified with the wilderness had urban association. Gosh (1973, 55) observes:
How the urban population regarded the rural one we do not know. Later literature is replete with references to the naivete and crudeness of the rural folk. The word graamya came to mean ‘vulgar’; the attitude of the townsmen was one of mockery, condescension and even unfriendliness.
It may not be too farfetched to detect a hidden meaning in these texts: the activities of the village are not only unprofitable but vulgar and not fit for the elite, whether it be urban or ascetic.—p.67
…It is quite a different matter, however, to attempt to isolate non-Aryan customs, beliefs, or traits at a period a millennium or more removed from the initial Aryan migration. The vedic literature, as Gonda (1965, 200) observes, does not give us a complete account of the religious life of the Aryans. That some aspects we observe at a later period are absent in earlier texts is no proof of their absence at that time or of their non-Aryan provenance.—p.68
…New elements in a culture, therefore, need not always be of foreign origin. We need to pay more heed to Gonda’s (1965, 206) caution: (p.68)
These considerations may suffice to prevent us from nourishing too great hopes of reaching definite results in attempting to unravel the problem of the extent of the Aryan and non-Aryan contributions to a considerable number of Indian social and religious phenomena.
In the absence of an adequate definition of orthodoxy within the Braahmanical tradition, moreover, the division of these conflicting theologies and life styles into “orthodox” and “heterodox” is not very useful either for historical purposes or for a phenomenological description of the data. The challenges to the traditional vedic view are found across a broad spectrum of religious literature, including some of the most authoritative texts of Braahmanism. Opposition to accepted views of a tradition, after all, can and often does come from within that tradition.—pp. 68-69
…An interesting and significant passage in the Mahaabhaarata presents in the clearest fashion what Heesterman (1985) has termed “the inner conflict of tradition” within the bosom of Braahmanism. Bewildered by the array of expert opinions regarding the true dharma, the seers ask the creator god, Brahmaa:
To which, indeed, of the dharmas should a person here most closely adhere? What do they have to say about this? Tell us, for the course of dharma appears to us to be diverse and contradictory.
Some claim that there is life after death, while others maintain that there is not. Some express doubt about everything, while others claim certainty.
Things are impermanent according to some and permanent according to others, unreal according to some and real according to others. Some believe that the one reality appears as dual, while others think that it is mixed; some teach unity, others separateness, and yet others multiplicity.
Thus do Brahmins who are wise and perceive the truth argue. Some wear mattered hair and deer skin, others shave their heads, and still others go naked.
Some say that one should not bathe, while others insist on bathing. Some favor eating, while others are given to fasting.
Some praise rites and others the cessation from them. Some assert the influence of both place and time, while others deny it. Some extol liberation and others diverse pleasures. (p.69)
Some desire wealth, while others strive after poverty. Some maintain the efficacy of worship, while others deny it.
Some are devoted to non-injury (ahimsaa) and others to injury. Some claim that one attains glory through good deeds, while others deny it.
Some delight in certainty as to the truth, while others adhere to skepticism. Suffering is the motive for some and pleasure for others.
Some assert the primacy of meditation, other wise men that of sacrifice, and still others that of giving gifts. Some assert the existence of everything, while others deny that anything exists.
Some praise austerity, while other people extol vedic study. Some assert that knowledge comes from renunciation, while nature philosophers claim that it comes from nature.
With so much disagreement regarding dharma leading in so many directions, we become bewildered, O god supreme, unable to reach any certainty.
“This is ultimate bliss,” “No, that is ultimate bliss”: so thinking, people charge one, for one always praises the dharma that one loves.
In this regard our judgment is confounded and our minds bewildered. This we want you to tell us, O lore: what is ultimate bliss? (MBh 14.48.14-27)
It is this conflict between two contradictory symbolic worlds and the theological debates and controversies that it engendered within the Braahmanical tradition that forms the background for the creation of the aasrama system.—pp.69-70
II THE EARLY PERIOD
…The aasramas as a province of dharma, moreover, were not integrated into the systematic expositions of dharma carried out in the Dharmasuutras; discussion of such central institutions as vedic initiation and marriage are conducted in the Dharmasuutras and the Grhyasuutras without any reference to the aasramas. The term varnaasramadharma used at a later period as a code for the totality of dharma is completely absent in the literature of this period.—p.71
3 The Origins
…The earliest descriptions of the system we possess are made by the authors of the Dharmasuutras, who either explicitly rejected its legitimacy or had serious doubts regarding some of its ramifications. Gautama and Baudhaayana, two of the earliest authors to record the system, present it as an opponent’s position—a puurvapaksa in traditional terminology—which they set out to refute. Aapastamba appears to accept the legitimacy of the system, but with deep reservations.—p.73
…Unlike its classical counterpart, ([which] became the standard from about the beginning of the common era) however, the original formulation regards these aasramas not as temporary stages of a person’s life but as four alternate and permanent modes of life open to an individual, one—and only one—of which he may freely choose. The person competent to make this choice is a young male adult who has undergone vedic initiation and who has completed his course of vedic studies under a teacher.—p.74
…”Remaining steadfastly in any of these (aasrmas), one attains bliss,”5
5. AapDh 2.21.2: tesu sarvesu yathopadesam avyagro vartamaanah ksemam gacchati. The expression tesu sarvesu literally means “in all these” or “in every one of these.” It is clear, however, that the locative plural is used here in a partitive sense and that Aapastamba’s intention is to show that each one of the aasramas is equally productive of the identical result. The aasramas, as we shall see, are taken by Aapastamba as permanent states, and hence it is impossible for a person to remain in all of them. The author’s intent is to assert the equality of all aasramas by stating that each and every aasrama leads to final bliss. Aapastamba uses the term ksema in his discussion of yoga and the knowledge of the self (aatman): 1.23.3; 2.5.18; 2.21.2,14,16. The term appears to signify a beatific state after death, although it is unclear whether it is a synonym of moksa.—p.76
…Now, in matters of dharma three authoritative sources were recognized: Veda, traditionally authoritative texts knows as Smrti, and the behavior and customs of learned and virtuous people (sista). Already during the time of the Dharmasuutras it was recognized that (p.76) vedic statements have greater authority than either custom or the statements of Smrtis (AapDh 1.4.8). Thus, if customs or the provisions of Smrtis contradict vedic injunctions, then the former are to be rejected as unauthoritative in favor of the vedic provisions.—pp.76-77
The conflict between injunctions that is the foundation of choice also shows why in the case of the aasramas that choice had to be exercised at the particular time. A choice is properly exercised only at a time when conflicting injunctions open alternative courses for the performance of an imminent action. For example, the choice of rice or barley can only be made just prior to performing a sacrifice. Once a person decides to use rice, for example, a choice is no longer open to the sacrificer; he cannot at a later time during that sacrifice opt to use barley. In the case of the aasramas, the normal time for marriage is when a young man has returned home after completing his initiatory studentship. If alternatives to marriage are possible because of the option (vikalpa) resulting from conflicting injunction, then the time for exercising that choice between those alternatives coincides with the normally prescribed time for marriage. Once a person has married, a choice of alternate life styles is no longer open to him even though they may be legitimately prescribed in the Vedas.—p.77
…There is no provision in the original system for a person to change his aasrama or to go from one aasrama to another. The prescribed time for their selection, moreover, demonstrates that they are adult modes of life. I have called them vocations because, as Vasistha (VDh 7.3) states explicitly, a person chooses the one toward which he is attracted by inclination or conviction.
The permanent nature of the aasramas was taken so much for granted by these authors that they apparently did not feel the need to discuss it explicitly. The one exception is the aasrama of a student, with regard to which the authors saw the possibility of some confusion. The term brahmacaarin (“student”) and brahmacarya (“studentship”) were used with reference to both the aasrama and the temporary period of study that follows a boy’s initiation. In the original formulation this temporary period of what have called initiatory studentship is not considered an aasrama at all.12
–p.78
12. There has been a lot of confusion in modern scholarship regarding this point. I have already mentioned (n.2) the views of Altekar and Lingat. Banerjee (1962,133) likewise states: “The entrance to this stage [studentship] is marked by the ceremony of initiation to vedic studies (upanayana).” No such initiation ceremony is prescribed for entry into the aasrama of a student in these early sources. See also Sharma 1939,22.—p.78
The institution of permanent studentship was not the creation of the aasrama system; it preexisted the system….—.79
…It is this adult and permanent, or at least not specifically temporary, institution associated with learning—an institution whose early history is admittedly vague and only partially understood—that appears to be at the root of the first aasrama and not the initiatory studentship associated with adolescence.—p.79
I have already drawn attention to Gautama’s use of the technical term vikalpa (“option”) in presenting the view of the proponents of the aasrama system and to the fact that in the exegetical tradition the choice of one alternative necessarily excludes the others. Such an option is viable only within the context of the permanence of the aasramas and the consequent impossibility of belonging to more than one aasrama during one lifetime. If the aasramas were not permanent and if they could be assumed successively, scriptural texts enjoining them would not be in conflict with each other, and, consequently, there would be no room for an option. Rather, all the aasramas would become equally obligatory. This is the opposite of option and in the Miimaamsaa tradition is technically called sammuccaya (“aggregation”) , which is the position advocated by the proponents of the classical system….—p.79
With reference to social class (varna), vedic study and initiation were the prerogatives of the twice-born classes of Brahmins, Ksatriyas, and Vaisyas. The aasrama system, like most other provisions of these texts on dharma, were addressed t male members of these three classes. Even though Ksatriyas and Vaisyas are not excluded, the discussion (p.81) nevertheless appears to center on the Brahmin. In this early period, however, there is no attempt to distribute the aasramas among the social classes.
Even though the theology of the aasramas did not take into account women or Suudras, we cannot conclude from it that women and/or Sudras did not participate in the institutions comprehended by that system. As I pointed out earlier, we need to keep the aasrma theology and the aasrama system distinct from the institutions. Clearly both women and Suudras got married and raised families. There is plenty of evidence, moreover, to suggest that they also became ascetics (see sections 7.1-2). Their life in those institutions, however, was not given the specific theological evaluation and significance that come from incorporation into the aasrama system.—pp.81-82
3.1.6 The Order of Aasramas [very good argument in understanding conflicts of later scholars on early system—dayanand]
An issue that has drawn a fair amount of scholarly attention concerns the order in which the aasramas are enumerated in these early documents. In later texts the usual order is student, householder, hermit, and renouncer, reflecting the sequence of the passage from one aasrama to another, an order that scholars have often assumed to be the normal and the norm, and deviations from which would require an explanation.
In the Dharmasuutras, however, only Baudhaayana and Vasistha follow that order. Aapastamba lists the householder first and the student second, while Gautama follows the usual order with regard to these two. Both, however, place the renouncer third and the hermit last.
Commentators and scholars alike have attempted to discover the reasons for this departure from the “normal order.” Kane (1974,II,1,416), for example, observes:
Aap. [Aapastamba] places the householder fist among the aasramas, probably on account of the importance of that stage to all other aasramas. Why he should mention the stage of forest hermit last is not clear. Gaut. [Gautama] also (III.2) enumerates the four aasramas as brahmacaarii [student], grhastha [householder], bhiksu [mendicant] and vaikhaanasa [hermit]. Here also Gaut. Speaks of bhiksu before vaikhaanasa and Haradatta explains this departure from the usual sequence of aasramas as due to the words in Gaut. 28.47
This order, however, is “normal” only within the context of the classical formulation. A specific order becomes insignificant when the aasramas are taken as four alternative adult vocations. The specific order in each author may be purely accidental, or it may reflect the structure of his literary work. Thus, Aapastamba may list the householder first because his treatment of the householder immediately precedes the section on the aasramas. Gautama, on the other hand, introduces the aasramas immediately after his discussion (p.82) of initiation and studentship. Listing the student first permits him to be brief regarding the duties of a student; he just says ” (The duties) of a student have already been given” (GDh 3.4). It is a fruitless enterprise, therefore, to attempt to discover the motives for the departure from a non-existent “normal order.”
To sum up, then, according to the original formulation of the system, the four aasramas are permanent and adult modes of life. Any one of them may be chosen by a young man who has returned home after completing his period of study with a teacher following his vedic initiation. The choice appears to be irrevocable, for no provision is made for changing one’s aasrama. All, except the aasrama of a householder, are celibate. The aasramas of a hermit and a renouncer, moreover, are not associated with old age, as they are in the classical formulation of the system.—pp.82-83
Braahmanical controversies and debates, especially in matters of ritual and conduct, were carried out within a framework that included canons of exegesis and interpretation and rules of logic and debate. To properly understand and evaluate the arguments of Braahmanical scholars recorded in their literature, therefore, we must enter their conceptual world and comprehend their technical vocabulary; we must understand the rules of their game…—p.83
…If a vedic text cannot be located within the extant corpus (pratyaksasruti) to support a provision recognized by Smrtis or custom, then one can infer that such a vedic text must have existed in the past, although it is now lost. That the theory of inferring a lost vedic text on the basis of a Smrti or custom was known within the intellectual milieu to which Gautama belonged is demonstrated by the fact that it is clearly enunciated by Aapastamba: “All injunctions were (originally) taught in the Braahmanas. Those sections of theirs that have been lost are inferred on the basis of custom” (AaDh 1.12.10). Thus all provision of dharma are based on either express vedic texts, that is, texts that are currently available, or on vedic texts whose existence is inferred on the basis of Smrtis or custom.
One can see the parallel between these two types of vedic evidence and the two basic sources of knowledge and means of proof (pramaana) in Indian logic, namely perception (pratyaksa) and inference (anumaana). As perception outweighs inference, so when verbal authority is the means of knowledge (sabdapramaana) an express or “perceived” vedic text annuls an inferred one.37 Now, this hermeneutical principle was not unknown during the period of the Dharmasuutras; Aapastamba enunciates it clearly: “For an (express) vedic text has greater force than a custom from which (the existence a vedic text) is inferred.” –p. 85
37. This principle is enunciated by Jaimini in the PMS 1.3.3: “When there is a conflict (between a vedic and a smrti text, the smrti) should be disregarded, because only when no such conflict exists is there an inference (of a vedic text).”—p. 85
…the argument from debts would remain a powerful weapon against asceticism throughout the history of Braahamanical theology…—p.89 ——-Rev
Baudhaayana then cites a verse from the Rgveda (10.71.9) that reproaches those who merely use the words of the Veda without understanding their meaning. This appears to be directed at the proponents of the aasrama system who cite vedic texts in support of their view without truly understanding their meaning.—p.90
…Express vedic texts and human perception, the two main sources of knowledge that invalidate all other sources which contradict them, oppose the argument for the superiority of celibacy.—p. 92
61. The term pramaana indicates both authority and means of knowledge;…—p.92
Aapastamba (AapDh 2.24.3-6) cites several verses from a text called Bhavisyat Puraana which show that offspring contribute to the glory of their departed ancestors. He then anticipates a possible objection: if children are the same as the father, then the sins they commit should affect the father. Resorting to the doctrine of karma, Aapastamba (2.24.7-10) says that the sins of children do not affect their parents. Those who commit sins perish alone; parents are not held responsible for the crimes of their children.—p.93
Even though the arguments used by him are similar to those of Gautama and Baudhaayana, Aapastamba draws a very different conclusion. He does not reject outright the legitimacy of the four aasramas or the appropriateness of choosing a celibate aasrama. His fight is not with the system itself but with those who claim a superior status to the celibate aasramas. His aim is to defend the equality of all aasramas….—p.93
Vasistha’s is the latest extant Dharmasuutra, and by his time the controversies surrounding the aasrama system had by and large ceased. He does not defend the equality of the aasramas as explicitly or as vigorously as Aapastamba, but some concern regarding the alleged superiority of the celibate aasramas must underlie his eulogy of the householder:…—p.93
The aasrama system must have gained sufficient acceptance within the mainstream of the dharma tradition by the time of Vasistha, because he is the only author of Dharmasuutra to integrate the system fully into his discussion of dharma. It is no longer a parenthesis or an afterthought. Vasistha discusses the duties of students, householders, hermits, and renouncers within the framework of the aasrama system, devoting one chapter to each aasrama. We detect thus a significant shift with regard to the system within the dharma tradition during the period of three to four centuries that separate Vasistha from his predecessors.—p.93
The aasrama system as presented in the early Dharmasuutras has the characteristics of a novel doctrine. Gautama and Baudhaayana deal with it almost parenthetically and question its legitimacy. Even Aapastamba, who accepts the system, does not integrate it in to the body of his treatise. Gradually, however, it received acceptance—grudgingly at first no doubt, as seen in Aapastamba—within the mainstream of the dharma tradition. By the time of Vasistha around the second century B.C.E. it had become part of the mainstream itself. The Dharmasuutras thus bear witness to the early attitude of the mainstream to the system: from outright rejection to total acceptance and integration into the frame work of the treatises. We can be fairly certain, moreover, that the evidence provided by the early Dharmasuutras is not too distant in time from the creation of the system itself. The two questions that I want to deal with here are who were the inventors of this system and what was the purpose of that invention?–p.94
Two common assumptions have prevailed among scholars [T.W. Rhys Davids 1903, 249-50; Weinrich 1929, 80-81,88,92; Sharma 1939,20; Apte 1951, 442-43,447,493; O’Flaherty 1973, 78-82] regarding the authorship and intent of the aasrama system: it was create by conservative Brahmins with the intention of resisting the new religious movements and of safeguarding the Braahmanical religion by incorporating the renunciatory life style into a scheme that would lessen its impact and reduce or eliminate the conflict between it and the life of the householder….—p.94
Belvalkar and Ranade consider the willingness to incorporate any new doctrine so long as it did not question the authority of the Vedas or the theology of sacrifice as a general characteristic of Braahmanism, and cite the aasrama system as a good example…-p.95
One can readily agree with one point in this thesis….the background against which the aasrama system came into being was the conflict between the doctrines and institutions of the vedic world and those of an emerging new world with an alternative definition of reality. Following the ideals of the one meant rejecting those of the other….—p.95
The initial response of the guardians of the threatened world is the outright rejection of the new and the implementation of strategies for suppression, coupled with theoretical legitimation of the old world. Such, as we have seen, was the response of the early experts of dharma represented by Gautama and Baudhaayana.
It is the second stage that represents the more interesting phase of this conflict, however. As Berger and Luckmann (1967,115) observe:
[It] involves the more ambitious attempt to account for all deviant definitions of reality in terms of concepts belonging to one’s own universe….The deviant conceptions are not merely assigned a negative status, they are grappled with theoretically in detail. The final goal of this procedure is to incorporate the deviant conceptions within one’s own universe, and thereby to liquidate them ultimately.
In religious traditions the incorporation of the new into the structures of the old takes place primarily through the hermeneutical process so prominent in the history of the aasrama system….—p.95
The evidence of the Dharmasuutras, I expect to show, does not support such a hypothesis. Contrary to Berger and Luckmann, I would argue that the initiative to find ways of grafting the new onto the old can and often does come from the leaders of the deviant world who seek acceptance, patronage, and economic advantage within the broader society. The creation of the aasrama system provides a good example of such an initiative.—p.96
A close reading of these early texts leads us to the conclusion that the aasrama system was created not by the conservative mainstream in order to encompass in a stifling embrace new ideas and institutions that it had failed to suppress but by Brahmins who shared those ideas and ideals and who sought exegetical loopholes to introduce them into the Braahmanical mainstream. From our examination of the debate on the aasrama system within the Dharfmasuutras we can draw the following conclusions with some confidence. (1) The authors of the system were Brahmins who were supporters of or sympathetic toward the ideals of celibacy and renunciation, and who belonged to what may be termed the “liberal” segments of the Braahmanical community. (2) Their purpose in creating the system was to legitimize the modes of life different from that of the householder by providing a place for them within the sphere of dharma, thereby stretching this central concept in new idretions.67—p.96
67. This is not something completely new. The Buddhists,for example, established a more radical redefinition of dharma by using that term to designate their doctrine and value system.—p.96
….This evidence, however, is insufficient to conclude that the system was created by Brahmin renouncers. The preponderance of the evidence, nevertheless, points in the direction of Brahmins who, if they were not actually renouncers, were at the least sympathetic to the ideals of celibacy and renunciation.—p.97
70. Altekar (1955, 186) proposes a similar view: “The new school undoubtedly regarded Renunciation as superior to vedic sacrifices, presupposing matrimony, but could not openly say so, owing to the great hold of the vedic religion over the popular mind. It, therefore, followed the strategy of provoking the least possible opposition and began to plead for Renunciation the status of an alternative ‘maarga’ or path for salvation.” It is unclear whether their strategy in devising the aasrama system was one “of provoking the least possible opposition,” but I agree with his view regarding its authorship.—p. 97
In the light of what we have said about the socio-economic conditions of this time (section 2.2), moreover, I am inclined to believe that the aasrama system is an urban invention, or at least reflects the openness of an urban mentality. It is certainly more likely that Brahmins living in urban centers were influenced by and open to new ideas and institutions than their village counterparts. The most persuasive argument, however, is the very nature of the original aasrama system. It envisages the assramas as voluntary institutions. People are free to choose what they want to be as adults. The same principle was the basis of other voluntary organizations, such as Buddhist and Jain monastic orders. It is difficult to see how the assertion of individual freedom that is at the heart of this bold theological innovation could have arisen within a village context.—p.99
…Kapila calls aasrama the fourfold or four-footed dharma (dharmam catuspaadam),…—p.99
From the above discussion it becomes clear that the purpose76 of the aasrama system was not to defend “orthodoxy” against external assaults, principally from renunciatory institutions and ideologies. Its purpose was rather to cerate a scheme within which the pivotal category of dharma could be extended to include religious modes of life different from that of the Braahmanical householder. Its architects were—if I be permitted the use of modern political terminology—not the reactionary defenders of orthodoxy but liberal reformers bent on leading the vedic tradition in new directions.
76. I am, of course, not talking about the motives of its creators, which we will never know, but about what we can glean regarding the functions it served or was seen as serving during the early period of its history.—p.100
It is a common phenomenon in religions that new ideas and institutions are hardly ever presented as something new. One way of effacing their novelty is to relate them to central concepts of the old order through the hermeneutical labor of theologians and exegetes. Even when entirely new symbolic worlds emerge, they maintain significant continuities with symbols and ideas of the ones they replace. Perhaps the most central concept of the ancient Indian religious world was dharma. Even Buddhism and Jainism adopted the term as a pivotal idea of their symbolic worlds. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Braahmanical groups favoring new ideas and institutions should attempt to relate them to this central concept.
Baudhaayana (BDh 2.11.9) states explicitly that the authors of the system presented it as a classification of dharma. It is possible, though not altogether certain, that they intended the division of dharma in terms of the four aasramas to parallel its older division into the four varnas (“social classes”). The connection between the two, however, was soon established within the dharmasaastric tradition…—p.100
The aasrama system can thus be seen as a structure for inclusion. In this sense the ideology of the aasrama system is similar to that of the varna and caste system. They both aim at managing diversity not by eliminating it but by recognizing and including the diversities within an overarching system….In this sense it was a forward-looking and reformist scheme rather than a defensive wall put up by beleaguered conservatives.—p.101
85. Raam 2.98.58: caturnaam aasramaanaam hi gaarhasthyam srestham aasramam/ aahur dharmajna dharmajnaas tam katham tyaktum arhasi//– “Those who know the dharma, O knower of the dharma, proclaim the householder’s aasrama to be the best among the four aasramas. How can you abandon it?”—p.103
3.4.2 The Silence of the Bhagavad Gita
In sharp contrast to the rest of the Mahaabhaarata (section 5.3.5), the very term aasrama does not occur at all in the Bhagavad Gita. In a relatively short text such as the Gita (p.103), however, an argument from silence is even more precarious than in the case of the voluminous Raamaayana. Yet the central problem of the Gita, the question that is raised at the very beginning and serves as the frame of reference for the entire dialogue, relates to the controversy regarding the relative values of work (karma) and the renunciation of work. The book opens with Arjuna’s decision not to fight (BhG 2.9), a decision the author interprets within the broader set of questions posed by that controversy (BhG 3.3-4). Arjuna’s abandonment of war is tantamount to the abandonment (samnyaasa) of action (karma) and, implicitly, to the abandonment of one’s duties (svadharma). It is clear that the author’s intent goes beyond Arjuna’s dilemma; he sees in it the dilemma confronting all people faced with the two contradictory value systems of dharma (interpreted as the obligation to perform ritual and social activities) and samnyaasa (abandonment of rites as a precondition for achieving liberation). This conflict within the tradition is recapitulated in the opening verse of the fifth chapter:
samnyaasam karmanaam krsna punar yogam ca samsasi/
yac chreya etayor ekam tam me bruuhi suniscitam//
You praise the renunciation of actions, Krsna, and then also their performance. Tell me for certain which is the better of them.
Now, the same dilemma appears in many other passages of the Mahaabhaarata, and in each of them the aasrama system is presented at least as one possible solution. The clearest occurs in the dialogue between Vyaasa and Suka (MBh 12. 233-37). Referring to conflicting vedic statements, some enjoining action and others its abandonment, Suka asks Vyaasa bluntly to explain the contradiction. 86 After several attempts that do not satisfy Suka, Vyaasa resorts to the classical aasrama system to resolve the apparent conflict within the Veda. This dilemma, as we shall see in section 5.3.5, is also raised when, after winning the war, Yudhisthira decides to renounce, a decision that clearly parallels Arjuna’s decision at the beginning of the same war. Yudhisthira’s decision opens the voluminous Saantiparvan, as Arjuna’s does the Gita. Unlike the Gita, however, the Saantiparvan uses, among others, the aasrama system as an argument for Yudhisthira’s acceptance of royal responsibilities. 87 Other instances are the dialogues between Kapila and the cow88 and between Janaka and Sulabhaa. 89
The problems and issues dealt with in the Gita are thus not unique; they occur throughout the great epic. Why is it then that the Gita totally ignores the aasrama system as a possible solution to the dilemma? Now, I agree with van Buitenen’s (1981,5) assessment that
the Bhagavadgiitaa was conceived and created in the context of the Mahaabhaarata. It was not an independent text that somehow wandered into the epic. On the contrary, it (p.104) was conceived and developed to bring to a climax and solution the dharmic dilemma of a war which was both just and pernicious. 91
It is, therefore, difficult to argue that the author of the Gita was ignorant of the aasrama system. His intellectual world could not have been radically different from that of the authors of the rest of the didactic portions of the Mahaabhaarata, unless we are willing to date the Gita as early as the fifth century B.C.E. Indeed, he shows familiarity with most of the other central institutions and ideas of the classical Braahmanical world. If he was aware of the aasrama system, why did he choose to completely ignore it, without even mentioning it in passing?
One can, of course, only guess, and I would venture to offer the following, hopefully educated, guess. We need to note, first of all, a couple of points regarding the Gita’s argument. In almost all other discussions, the dilemma is finally viewed in terms of an institutional opposition principally between the householder and the renouncer. There the relevance of the aasrama system is obvious. The Gita, however, does not see the dilemma in institutional terms; indeed, the very term householder (grhastha) is absent in it. The Gita never makes clear what sort of a life its ideal human who participates in devotional and ritual activities (bhaktiyoga and karmayoga) leads. It is never said that he is in fact a householder. The argument of the Gita takes place at a more abstract level. It seeks to show that true renunciation does not consist in the physical abstention from activity but in the proper mental attitude toward action. Abandonment of desire for the results of one’s actions is true renunciation, which the Gita sees as an inner virtue rather than an external life style. In other words, the Gita is proposing a more radical solution to the dilemma—the very elimination of the dilemma by a new interpretation of the two horns—than that offered by either formulation of the aasrama system.
Another reason for the reluctance to drag the aasrama system into the debate may hinge on the formulation familiar to the author. Given his strong inclusivist tendency evident throughout the text, it seems to me very likely that he would have at least mentioned the aasrama system as at least one solution to the dilemma if he had been familiar with its classical formulation. Based on the classical system, the author could have made a strong case against Arjuna’s decision: because he was in the householder’s aasrama, it was incumbent on Arjuna to perform the duties of the state. Renunciation was the exclusive preserve of the fourth aasrama.
If we accept the conventional wisdom that the Gita was composed sometime during the last few centuries before the common era, 92 however, it is likely that the author would not have known the classical system, which, as we shall se,, did not arise until the beginning of the common ear. If the author was familiar only with the original formulation, we can better understand his reluctance to mention it. One of its principal features, as we have seen, is the admission of individual choice. It is just such choice in matters of dharma—the very choice that Arjuna had decided to exercise in deciding not to fight—that Krsna is attempting to combat. Halbfass (1988,336) captures well the mind of our author: (p.105)
The karmic result which is manifested as caste membership and hereditary social role must be accepted and upheld against all temptations posed by the inclinations and dispositions of the individual. This is the core of the doctrine of svadharma.93
It could have hardly helped his cause to invoke the original aasrama system.
The total absence of the term aasrama in the Gita, however, remains a riddle, and no scholar, to my knowledge, has until now even recognized the existence of this riddle let alone attempted to solve it. The hypothesis I have tentatively presented both explains the Gita’s silence and supports the broad chronology of the early development of the aasrama system that I have presented in this study, as well as the date of this document proposed by van Buitenen.—pp. 103-106
86. The recurrent phrase is kuru karma tyajeti ca—”perform action and abandon it”: MBh 12.233.1; 12.234.3,10. The same phrase occurs in the section on Yudhisthira’s decision to renounce: MBh 12.19.1—p.104
87. See, for example, MBh 12.11.15; 12.21.15; 12.23.2,5; 12.25.6.—p.104
88. See especially MBh 12.260.12-17; 12.261.5-15; 12.262.19-30.—p.104
89. See MBh 12.308.44,60,177,180.—p.104
91. Zaehner (1969,7) makes a similar assessment: “Hence, it is fair to conclude that the Gita was originally conceived of as an integral part of the Epic”—p.105.
92. van Buitenen (19811,6) suggests circa 200 B.C.E. as a likely date, which seems reasonable to me.—p.105
93….The Gita, in fact, never defines svadharma in terms of one’s aasrama.—p.106
A significant formulation of doctrine in the history of religions frequently signals the conclusion of a long process of theological reflection. It is often only one, albeit historically the most successful, among many attempts at addressing similar theological issues…—p.106
The creator of the system, as we have seen, placed themselves explicitly within an existing theological tradition. They cited vedic texts that they believed contained in essence the aasrama system. This, of course, does not mean that the composers of those vedic texts had the aasrama system in mind, but it means that the creators of the system worked within a tradition of textual interpretation and theological evolution…-p.106
…Indeed, as I have already mentioned, the four aasramas need not, and in all likelihood did not, correspond to four socio-religious institutions. Several similar institutions were collapsed into a single theological entity, and it is these theologically defined entities that bear the name aasrama.—p.110
There is clearly no evidence, therefore, for the existence of a primitive system of three—and much less five—aasramas to which a fourth, that of the renouncer, was subsequently added. The earliest and the only evidence we possess indicates that the system (p.110) originally included all four institutions. The system did not form through a process of aggregation. It was a theological scheme of four invented by one or more bold theologians and not something that simply came into being through an unconscious historical process. The intellectual history that gave rise to the system, moreover, should be searched for not in the number of aasramas but in the disputes and discussions regarding dharma, such as that found in the Chaandogya passage. Unfortunately we do not have records of many such disputes in texts that we can assign to this period with some confidence. Disputes regarding what is the “true” dharma abound in the epic literature, but these, in all likelihood, belong to a later period.—pp.110-111
…Buddhist sources contain stories of heirs murdering their fathers to assume the throne.14…-p.116
14. On parricide in Indian history and culture, see Obeyesekere 1990, 75-88, 143-214. On the presence of parricide and the Oedipus complex in India, see Ramanujan 1983; Godman 1978.-p.116
…The only death suitable for a royal person is death either in the battlefield or in the forest (MBh 15.8.12)
The Paali Canon also records a similar tradition…—p. 116
The proper time for renunciation became a major point of controversy within the Braahmanical tradition, although it is unclear whether that controversy was a response to the severe restriction imposed by the original aasrama system. What is clear, however, is that the controversy had a profound impact on the development of that system.—p.117
…Renunciation at an early age, however, is presented a somewhat extraordinary and limited to those individuals who have acquired a high degree of knowledge (Aaruni) or detachment (Jaabaala). The statements regarding the major objects that a man renounces—namely wife, son, and fires—as well as the major role the son and ritual fires play in the rite of renunciation described in these documents, demonstrate that the normal candidate for renunciation was a married man.—p.119
Braahmanism was essentially a ritual religion. Ritual categories were at the heart of Braahmanical theology and its understanding of reality. The logical, if somewhat paradoxical, result of this ritualism was that Braahmanism more than either Buddhism or Jainism, both of which had strong anti-ritualistic tendencies, defined renunciation as consisting of the abandonment of ritual activities. Renunciation, for Braahmanism, is essentially a non-ritual state.—p.122
[for review only] Significant practical and theological conclusions, moreover, derive from that premise, conclusions that have a direct impact on the aasrama system. The non-ritual state of renunciation, on the one hand, determines who is entitled to assume that state and, on the other, relates it to other non-ritual states that at first may not have been regarded as ascetic of life.—p.122]
The definition of renunciation as a non-ritual state was given ritual expression within Braahmanism in the rite whereby a person became a renouncer. It is a measure of the importance of this definition that other central aspects of renunciatory asceticism, such as celibacy, mendicancy, homelessness, and abandonment of the family, recede totally into the background within the rite of renunciation. The rite’s complete focus is on the abandonment of ritual.—p.122
…Thus before a person is able to renounce the ritual religion he must become part of it, as before renouncing wealth one must acquire it. Only a married householder, therefore, is able to perform meaningfully the act of renunciation.
The rite and theology of renunciation that developed within Braahmanism, therefore, contradict the central provision of the original aasrama system—namely, that a person should choose an aasrama, in this case renunciation, before marriage.—p.123
One of the oldest and most significant of such non-ritual states is created after a rite which is performed by a dying man. Several ancient Brahmanical sources record the (p.123) custom according to which a man who is approaching death performs a rite called sampratti or sampradaana (“transmission”)…—p. 123-124
…The belief in the importance of the dying moment also gave rise to the practice of renouncing when one is in danger of death due to a sickness or some other reason. This practice, already referred to in the Jaabaala Upanisad (68), is technically referred to an aaturasamnyaasa (“renunciation of those in mortal danger”). The dying man merely has to say orally or mentally the formula of renunciation: “I have renounced.” (p.125) The same belief may be at the root of the custom of permitting those who have become renouncers to commitsuicide.43—pp. 125-126
43.Five methods of suicide are given: dying as a hero in battle, starving, entering a fire, drowning, and undertaking the Great Journey, that is, walking toward the north until one drops dead (JU 68; KsU 39; Maanava Srautasuutra, 8.25.15; Ypra 17.32; cf. Olivelle 1978b). I cannot follow Sprockhoff’s (1979, 395; 1987, 257) argument against calling such a death suicide. Suicide is defined as the act of brining death upon oneself intentionally. The fact that one accepts that death freely does not make such a death less a suicide. Although in starvation, heroic death, and the Great Journey one does not positively bring about death, yet entering fire and drowning constitute positive acts of suicide. For studies or religious suicide in India, see Kane 1974, II.2, 924-28; 1973, IV, 604-14; Thakur 1963. For Buddhist suicide, see Wiltshire 1983; and for Jain, see Settar 1986).—p.126
…Most Grhyasuutras—texts that describe the domestic ritual—begin with marriage. This makes sense from both a literary and a theological (p.126) standpoint: the description of the home ritual directed at a householder begins with the rite that establishes a home and creates a householder. With the exception of the funeral all other sacramentary rites are, in fact, performed by the householder for his children.
A few Grhyasuutras and all the works on dharma describe first the vedic initiation and the duties of a student. The intent here appears to be to present the vedic studentship as a period that prepares an adolescent for marriage and household responsibilities. This scheme follows the individual as he grows from childhood into adulthood and offers ritual and educational guidance so that this important transition could be made smoothly and successfully. It is this sacramentary scheme which is followed by the original aasrama system and which probably influenced the development of its classical formulation.—pp.126-127
[Rew: There is, however, a crucial……..are permanent modes of life.]—p.127
III THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
…Although historical periods most often are based on actual historical processes and changes, yet they are not themselves data or entities of history and often project the priorities and prejudices of the historians. The division into historical periods is especially difficult in India where it is almost impossible to determine with any precision or certitude the dates of most major historical events, whether they be the reign of kings, the birth of leaders, or the writing of texts. –p.129
nibandha= independent legal treatises.—p.129
5. The Classical Aasrama System
Rev: In contrast to the original…….another—p.131
The entry into the first aasrama, as well as the passage from it to the second aasrama and fro the second to the third, signals an important transition in an individual’s life. The symmetry of this scheme, however, breaks down when it deals with the passage fro the third to the fourth aasrama, namely renunciation. Both are related to old age, retirement, and preparation for death. The reason one must pass from the third to the fourth and the time in life one must do it are left unexplained and vague. The sources merely say that one should spend some time in the third aasrama and afterward, during the final years of one’s life, become a renouncer. The anomaly of having two aasramas relating to old age and the centrality of the ideal of liberation (moksa) with which renunciation was closely connected may have contributed to the third aasrama‘s eventually becoming obsolete.—p132
With the formulation of the classical system we see a parallel change in the image used to illustrate the aasramas. We saw that in the literature dealing with the original system the dominant image was that of a path: the four aasramas are four parallel paths leading to the same goal. Within the classical system, however, the path is replaced by the ladder. The four aasramas form a ladder of four rungs, and climbing this ladder lets one gradually reach the highest goal. A medieval text, in fact, cites one passage which depicts even the gods and the forefathers (pitarah) as attaining immortality by climbing the ladder of the aasramas.1—p.132
1. saisaasramanihsrenir yayaa devaah sapitaras caamrtatvam agacchan. Haariit’s Dharmasuutra cited in KKT, Brahmacaarikaanda, p. 268. The same image is found also in the MBh 12.20.4)—p.132
3. Later astronomical treatises speak of the planets that influence the different stages of a person’s life: Moon—age 1, Mars—ages 2-3, Mercury—ages 4-12, Venus—13-32, Jupiter—33-50, Sun—51-70, Saturn—71-120. Varaahamihira’s Brhajjaataka, VIII, 9; Brhastsamhitaa, XCVI. 17 (p.859). See Wayman 1963).—p.133
…The sources speak of aanulomya, literally “rubbing (p.133) in the direction in which the hair grows,” with reference to the aasramas; one can proceed legitimately only in one direction. The opposite—praatilomya (“going against the grain”)—is not permitted…—p.134
The hermeneutical tradition developed three ways of resolving conflicts arising from vedic injunctions that appear to contradict each other. First, one may choose (vikalpa) one or the other of the alternatives if the contradictory injunctions have the same power or authority….Second, if it can be demonstrated that one injunction is more authoritative than the other—if one, for example, is found in the Veda, while the other is found only in Smrtis—then the injunction of lesser authority is annulled (baadha). In this case there is no real conflict, for the latter is not a true injunction and therefore unable to contradict the former….The third view is called samuccaya or “aggregation,” according to which all the items enjoined by conflicting injunctions are considered equally obligatory, the conflict being resolved by referring them to different times, individuals, or activities…—p.134
The Braahmanical tradition manifests a growing distaste for permitting choice in matters of dharma This distaste was influenced by the development of the doctrine of karma and found expression in the concept of svadharma, “the dharma proper to a specific individual.” An individual’s essence (svabhaava) is defined by his or her actions performed in previous existences. This essence is defined primarily not by one’s (p.134) individuality but by the social context one is born into, that is by, one’s sex and caste, to which was added one’s aasrama when the system became an integral part of the Braahmanical world. This core of one’s human existence, in turn, defines one’s svadharma, which, as the Bhagavad Gita clearly enunciates, stands above personal inclinations, ambitions, and preferences as a sort of categorical imperative:
It must always be remembered that all human existence and experience is conditioned by past actions, is karmic result or even “metaphysically congealed act,” and that there is no purely factual, empirically ascertainable human “reality” from which an “ought,” and obligation, could be derived. The karmic result which is manifested as caste membership and hereditary social role must be accepted and upheld against all temptations posed by the inclinations and dispositions of the individual. This is the core of the doctrine of svadharma. (Halbfass 1988, 335-36)—pp. 134-35
…The clear implication of this hermeneutical principle is that choice or option in matters relating to dharma should be avoided almost at any cost.
Within Braahmanical hermeneutics choice or following one’s own inclination in matters of dharma was permitted only when injunctions of equal authority contradicted each other or when a choice was explicitly permitted within an injunction….The distaste for choice, however, prompted the exegetes to adopt various strategies to eliminate choice as far as possible even when vedic or smrti injunctions provided for divergent courses of action. The division of time into four ages (yuga), for example, provided one hermeneutical device for resolving contradictions. As each age has its own proper dharma, some of the obsolete rules were referred to past ages, and, therefore, made inapplicable to current practice.—p. 135
Rev: The proponents…..to that group.—p.136
Rev: So far I have…formulation…—p.136
Rev: With regard to a man’s ….renunciation:…-p.139
…Manu praises the householder’s as the most excellent of the aasramas: …23-p.140
23. MDh .77-78. Similar statements are found in other texts: VaDh 8.14-16; ViDh 26-28. The dependence of others on the householder often refers to the fact that students and renouncers obtain their food from householders, the hermit being tacitly ignored in most such statements. In his commentary on the MDh, Medhaatithi hints at a more radical meaning when he says that verse 77 reaffirms the necessity of performing the five great sacrifices. Indeed, in verse 76 Manu affirms the traditional doctrine that sacrifices produce rain, rain food, and food creatures. Thus, the dependence of others on the householder may finally rest on the fact that householders offer sacrifices that sustain the entire ecology of the universe.—p.140
The influence of celibate and renunciatory values is evident in Manu’s attempt to find equivalences in the duties of a householder. Thus, a man who does not engage in sexual activity with his wife during the forbidden days is said to practice celibacy (MDh 3.50). Only the first-born is a son conceived according to dharma, for he alone is fathered in fulfillment of a debt, whereas subsequent sons are the result of passion (MDh 9.107). the householder in this manner can appropriate to himself the values of other aasramas without abandoning home and family.—p.140
Manu (MDh 6.87-90) appears to be saying something like this: “I grant that all these four aasramas can lead a person to the highest state. Nevertheless, the householder is the best and chief among them, and as such it is unnecessary to leave the household life in old age. I give now this alternative way of leading a holy life in old age in one’s own house.”
Manu reserves the term samnyaasa for this institution,29 within this context the term means retirement rather than renunciation.—p.141
29. The term vedasamnyassin also occurs at BDh 2.18.24, where its meaning is far from clear. The Aasrama Upanisad (97) employs the term ghorasamnyaasika as one class of holy householders, whereas the Kuurma Puraana (1.2.79) uses samnyaasika and the Garuda (1.49.13) samnyaasin with reference to a class of hermits.—p.141
The institution of Veddasamnyaasika, therefore, permits a person to remain a householder all his life….—p.142
It is clear, therefore, that for Manu the passage through the four aasramas was one among several paradigms for leading a religious life. Although Manu presents the classical system, it is neither as central nor as normative in his law book as it is in later Braahmanical literature.—p. 142
Rev: Unlike Manu,….becoming obsolete (see section 6.2.1)—p.143
…Unlike the other texts we have examined, the Vaikhaanasa Dharmasuutra is organized around the categories and institutions of varna and aasrama. It is the first text, for example, to relate the aasramas to the varnas: all four aasramas are open to Brahmins, the first three to (p.145) Ksatriyas, and the first two to Vaisyas (VaiDh 1.1.9). The very absence of the Suudra clearly shows that the aasrama system was limited to the twice-born Aaryas…—pp. 145-46
…the major aim of the classical system was to eliminate choice the central feature of the original system, and thereby to make marriage and household duties obligatory to all.—p.147
…The Vaikhaanasa, however, applies this progressive increase in the number of sacrificial strings also to hermits and renouncers, giving the strong impression that the increase is used to ritually express a man’s progress along the ladder of aasramas. 50 Although the text does not explicitly enjoin a single string on a student, the use of the singular yajnopaviitam (VaiG2.5) indicates that the student wears only one string. It explicitly prescribes two sacrificial strings for a householder (VaiDh 3.1), three for a hermit (VaiDh 2.2), and four for a renouncer (VaiDh 2.7). The increase in the number from one for a student to four for a renouncer is unmistakably a ritual expression of the classical system. The presence of four strings indicates that a person has undertaken all four aasramas, that he truly has accumulated (samuccaya) all the aasramas. 51—p.147
50. There is evidence that the increase in the number of strings [in yajnopaviitam] was used for a variety of ritual purposes. Thus Medhaatithi (on MDh 2.44), for example, prescribes one string for some types of vedic sacrifices, three for those requiring three fires, and five or seven for yet others.
51. The Vaikhaanasa, however, permits the renouncer the option of wearing either four or just one sacrificial string (VaiDh 2.7). This appears to be a concession to those renouncers who renounced before marriage, who are here likened to perpetual students, an identification that is common also in later literature.—p.147
…It is a common practice in Indian religious writings to use a well-known religious practice as almost a currency to estimate the value of another, and possibly lesser known, religious activity. Thus it may be said that a person who performs a particular vow will acquire the merits of a hundred horse sacrifices or a thousand Soma sacrifices. A king who rules his kingdom justly, for example, receives the same rewards as if he had lived in all the aasramas (MBh.12.66.5-37). A man killed in battle likewise obtains the rewards of all four aasramas (MBh 12.99.46)—p.149
[kanyaadanam, giving the daughter in marriage is equal to performing asvamedha yajna—dayanand]
…Vyaasa with the dilemma that vedic texts enjoin us both to perform rites and to abandon them (kuru karma tyajeti ca), a dilemma similar to that of the Bhagavad Gita. Vyasa replies by showing that both those injunctions can be carried out by following the ladder of the aasramas (MBh 12.233-37). A similar instruction is given by Janaka to Suka (MBh 12.313.10-19).—p.149
This [MBh 12.11] and other passages of the Mahaabhaarata show the central theological feature of the classical system that I have already noted. Whenever the opposition between life in the world and its renunciation is presented as either a theological issue or an existential problem in the life of a person—as in the cases of Arjuna in the Gita and Yudhisthira in the Saantiparvan—the classical system permitted their resolution both by presenting renunciation as suitable only for the old and the retired and by upholding the householder’s life as the best aasrama—the most altruistic, the most difficult, and the most virtuous.—p.150
…The rejection of the compromise proposed in the classical system is presented most vividly in the conversation between a father, the guardian of the old order, and his son, representing the troubled and anguished spirit of the new religious world58…—p.150
58. MBh 12.169. A version of the story appears also in the Markandeya Puraana. Ch.10. As Winternitz (1923,5-8) has pointed out, this story, appearing as it does in Jain (Uttaraadhyayana, 14, in Jaina Suutra, II, 61-69) and Buddhist (Jaataka, 509) texts as well, probably belonged to the generic ascetic folklore before it was incorporated into the MBh. It thus points to the ascetic rejection of societal attempts to convert asceticism into an institution of old age.—p.150
Several of the central elements of the original system are expressly mentioned here (MBh 12.226.3-7). One (p.154) of the four aasramas is to be chosen after the young adult has completed his period of temporary studentship. Once chosen, the aasrama is to be pursued until death. In the final verse, however, an exception appears to be made in the case of a householder, who is permitted to proceed to the other aasramas after he has paid his three debts. This is an interesting integration of the original and the classical systems. That the original formulation appears here as a remnant from the past is confirmed by the fact that a little latter in the same discourse the author devotes four chapters (12.234-37) to the description of the classical system.—p.154-55
This (14.7-9) is as clear a presentation of the original system as possible. The interesting point is that, immediately after this presentation, the Vaamana (14.11; 15.1-61) gives the classical system of passage from one aasrama to another. One gets the impression that the author is not bothered by the fact that the system presented in these verse contradicts what is said later on. He appears to be presenting an anthology rather than a single doctrine.—p.156
Rev: A sutta cited …..as an aasrama—p.158
Rev: I have already noted….seventh century—pp.159-160
6 Development of the Classical System
The aasrama system, we have, was primarily a theological construct. On the one hand, the system imposed its own tidy fourfold scheme on a variety of behavior patterns. The classical system, on the other hand, imposed a somewhat artificial sequence for the assumption of the four aasramas, a sequence that did not totally correspond to actual practice, especially in the case of renunciation…-p.161
The aasrama system itself, we have, seen, was a theological classification that reduced numerous religious ways of life to four basic categories….—p.161
A point that we need to bear in mind as we explore these classifications is that, even though they are not totally unrelated to reality, the numbers we encounter in them are for the most part artificial and contrived. Unlike modern taxonomy, the numbers of these classifications are not derived from a careful analysis of actual patterns. Rather they follow accepted numerological schemes2…—p.161
2. For the significance of different numbers, especially four, in ancient India, see Gonda 1976; 1984, 50-53;–p.161
…The use of the technical term diiksaa, which means “initiation,” for these modes of life indicates that a person was initiated into them through a religious ceremony. The noteworthy point in this classification, as in most classifications of holy people in ancient India that we encounter, is that it is based almost exclusively o food, on what and how the hermits eat.—p.164
…The holy householder of Manu is thus transformed into the lowest category of renouncer. This is an example of the broader tendency within Braahmanical theology to collapse all forms of holy living, whether they be connected with householders or hermits, into the general category of renunciation or samnyaasa.—p.169
In most Hindu sects the renouncer was considered the paradigmatic holy man. These sects were for the most part founded and led by renouncers. The highest levels of holiness within each sect were thus related to the renunciatory mode of life. It should come as no surprise then, that of all the classifications of aasramas it is those relating to renunciation that command the attention of medieval theologians and perform significant functions within the theologies of holiness in medieval sects.—p.170
…The hierarchy of renouncers established by the various classificatory schemes points out the path toward holiness and the distinct steps it involves. On the other hand, they provide frameworks for interpreting the theologies of other sects; it is a common hermeneutical strategy in India to assign lower positions within one’s own scale to the highest level of holiness posited by other sects, thus eliminating their threat by this stifling theological embrace.—p.170
Polemical works bring out a different hermeneutical potential of the classification of renouncers. All sides to the Hindu theological debates on renunciation subscribe to the authority of an identical body of sacred texts, the Vedas and the Smrtis. This body, however, was only vaguely demarcated and many new Smrtis, both puraanic and dharmasaastric, continued to be composed often under the influence of sectarian practice and ideology. Vedic and especially smrti passages, therefore, could be cited in support of sundry and mutually contradictory positions. Such is the scriptural context of the medieval theological debates whose heart consisted of exegesis…—p. 172
…When two scriptural passages are in conflict, we have already seen, there arises an option. But as we have also seen (section 5.2), Braahmanical theology attempted whenever possible to eliminate options by interpreting the conflicting injunctions as referring to different situations or people. Thus the Advaita theologians interpret the passages cited by the Vaisnavas as referring to Kutiicakas and/or Bahuudakas, the two lower classes in their classification of renouncers. Aanandaanubhava in his Nyaayaratnadiipaavali enunciates this principle clearly:
The prescription of a triple staff, just like the rule regarding the offering before sunrise, does not contradict the rule about a single staff, because the authority of both is maintained by restricting them to specific classes of people with different qualifications. (In Olivelle 1986, 106)
Thus any text proposing anything contrary to the Advaita position about Paramahamsas can be dismissed as referring to lower classes of renouncers. In the hands of medieval theologians, therefore, the classification of renouncers was not a simple taxonomy but also a hermeneutical tool.—p.173
…these dharma works were exegetical treatises intent more on preserving and explaining the ancient rules than on merely presenting matters “relevant” to people of the time…-p.174
The theological reason permitting this [hermit to renouncer] modification concerns the age-old controversy between the competing values of celibacy and of procreation and ritual activity. We have already seen how Manu uses the doctrine of three debts to support the classical aasrama system. All later writers on dharma follow Manu’s lead. The main concern of these Braahmanical theologians was not to ensure that everyone followed the aasrama system but to support the traditional Braahmanical dharma centered on the duties of a householder. Their paramount concern was that all males get married, procreate sons to continue their line, and participate in the ritual religion.—p. 175
That a man must marry and beget a son before renouncing appears to have been the theological bottom line for conservative Brahmins…—p.175
The primary concern of Braahmanical theology, therefore, was not that one should faithfully follow the sequence of aasramas but that the obligations of the ritual religion be fulfilled before a person commits himself to a celibate life. A householder who has paid his three debts by studying the Vedas, begetting offspring, and performing sacrifices, is thus permitted to become a renouncer immediately. Whether r not a person becomes a hermit prior to renunciation is not an issue about which these theologians show great concern.—p.177
51. There is a play on the Sanskrit word saara (“pith” or “substance”). Samsaara, if one ignores the nasal, can mean “with substance.” In reality, however, samsaara is nihsaara or “without substance.” The true saara or substance behind the phenomenal world is Brahman.—p.178
7 The Aasramas and Other Braahmanical Institutions
…nevertheless, by at least the middle of the first millennium C.E. the system had become fully integrated into and assumed a central position within the Braahmanical world….as a shorthand term for the totality of the Braahmanical dharma….—p.183
In spite of repeated attempts throughout Indian history to universalize and to ethicize dharma, the mainstream of Braahmanical theology represented by Miimaamsaa and Dharmasaastra has continued to regard dharma as what Halbfass appropriately calls, “positive law.”2 Dharma is positive law insofar as these laws are known not through reasoning and inference but through injunctions and prohibitions contained primarily in the authoritative and sacred texts of the Veda and derivatively in the Smrtis. A central aspect of dharma, moreover, takes it further from a universal ethic: most rules of dharma are not generic but refer to specific groups or classes of people within society. Here we come to the concept of svadharma—that is, the dharma proper to a particular individual as defined by his or her group affiliation.—p.183
2. Halbfass 1988, 322. Attempts to universalize dharma were made in the Buddhist and Jain traditions, but they are evident in Hindu-Braahmanical works, and even in the Dharmasaastras, as well. The essence of dharma, for example, has been reduced to “non-injury” (ahmisaa) or to the “golden rule.” For a more extensive study, see Halbfass 1988, 330-33—p.183
samskaara = rites of passage—p.183
Women occupy an ambivalent and often contradictory position within the Braahmanical theology of dharma. On the one hand, women play a central and indispensable role in the central acts of the Brahmanical religion: sacrifice and procreation. There is also ample evidence that at least in the early period women participated in major Braahmanical institutions, such as vedic initiation. On the other hand, Braahmanical theology considers women never to be independent agents; in many respects their status is similar to that of children and Suudras.—p.184
…Already in the Rgveda women are said to have uncontrollable minds (RV 8.33.17) and to have the hears of hyenas (RV 10.95.15). Women are put on a par with Suudras, dogs, and crows: all embody false hood, sin, and darkness (SB 14.1.131).—p.184
…”Her father guards her in her childhood; her husband guards her in her youth; and her sons guard her in her old age. A woman is not fit to act on her own.7—p.185
7. MDh 9:3: pitaa raksati kaumaare bhartaa raksati yauvane/raksanti sthavire putraa na strii svaantantryam arhati// the verse is also found in VaDh 5.2; BDh 2.3.45; MBh 13.21.19; 13.46.13.—p.185
The four aasramas are regarded as paths (in the original system) or as a ladder (in the classical system) leading to the gods or to liberation. Especially in the classical system the aasramas are presented as a gradual but sure way to advance spiritually and to attain the final goal of human beings. By denying women this ladder of spiritual assent Braahmanical theology clearly asserts the spiritual superiority of men.
So far we have examined the theology, because as I stated at the outset (sections 1.2.1 and 1.3.1) the aasrama system is primarily a theological construct. The fact that the system was envisaged exclusively for men does not necessarily mean that women did not participate in the social institutions comprehended by that system. We have seen above evidence of female vedic initiation and study during the ancient period. There is overwhelming evidence, furthermore, for the existence even within the Braahmanical tradition of independent female ascetics.(p.188)
At a very early period in their history Buddhism and Jainism established monastic orders for women parallel to those for men. Early Sanskrit grammatical literature records several names for female ascetics, although it is unclear whether such references imply a recognition of the legitimacy of female asceticism on the part of the Braahmanical elite.17 The Dharmasaastras themselves refer to female ascetics frequently, often without condemnation. Thus Vasistha (VaDh 19.229-34) says that when a king dies the new king should maintain the wives of the deceased monarch. If, however, the wives do not wish to live under his protection, Vasistha permits them to become ascetics.—p.189
17. The Ganapaatha (233 on Paanini 2.1.70) mentions sramanaa, pravrajitaa, and taapasii. Pataanjali (on Paanini 3.2.14) uses the term parivraajakaa to refer to a female renouncer named Samkaraa.—p.189
Now, these literary references do not necessarily demonstrate the historical reality of such female ascetics. What they do demonstrate is that at least within some segments of the Braahmanical tradition female asceticism was recognized as both legitimate and praiseworthy and that such women could choose to become ascetics on their own and not at the behest of their husbands.
Such independent and celibate modes of life for women, however, never came to be integrated into the aasrama system…—p.190
…In other words, are the four aasramas distributed in some way among the four varnas? These are the questions that Braahmanical theology wrestled with, and there was no unanimity either in the way the questions were framed or in the way they were resolved.—p.190
…A question that looms large in later discussions, namely whether all twice-born males are entitled to enter all the aasramas, is not raised in the documents [viz. Dharmasuutras] of the early period. It is clear, however, that Suudras and other lower social classes were at least implicitly excluded from the system.—p.191
…The classical system, however, envisages an orderly passage from one aasrama to the next. Now, the first stage in this process is vedic studentship preceded by the rite of initiation, restricting that stage to males of the twice-born varnas. As an individual should be in the first stage prior to entering the second, all the aasramas would be necessarily restricted to twice-born men. There is nothing in Manu or the treatises of Yaajnavalkya and Visnu to contradict such a conclusion.
The relationship between aasramas and varnas is addressed explicitly for the first time in the Vaikhaanasa Dharmasuutra. In the very opening section, after enumerating the four varnas and describing the duties and occupations of each, the author declares: “(All) four aasramas are meant for a Brahmin, the first three for a Ksatriya, and just two for a Vaisya.”24….It appears that the author of the Vaikhaanasa, just like the authors of the other Dharmasaastras, is making a clear distinction between the aasrama of a householder and the social institution of marriage….—p.191
24. VaiDh 1.1: …In al likelihood the two aasramas of a Vaisya are the first two. The Mahaabhaarata (12.61.1-2; 12.62.2) also asserts that the four aasramas are meant only for Brahmins.—p.191
It is interesting and somewhat anomalous that this scheme [of Vaamana 15.62-63] does not permit Vaisyas to become vedic students. This prohibition contradicts the provisions of all the treatises on dharma as well as what the Vaamana itself states in other parts of the text. Even more significant, however, is the provision that recognizes the married status of a Suudra as an aasrama. Here we have the final identification of the social institution, namely married life, with its theological appropriation as aasrama.—p.192
…Even outside the context of the aasrama system, however, there was a widespread abhorrence among Braahmanical theologians at the very thought of Suudras even hearing the Vedas by accident, let alone learning them deliberately. It is forbidden to recite the Vedas in the vicinity of Suudras31. Gautama (GDh 12.4) goes as far as to state that molten lead should be poured into the ears of Suudra who listens to the Veda!…—p.193
31. See GDh 16.19; AapDh 1.9.9; VaDh 18.11-15; MDh 4.99; Ydh 1.148; Sabara on PMS 6.1.38.
…Raamaayana (7.64-67). When the young son of a Brahmin dies in his kingdom, Naarada informs Raama of the cause of that unfortunate event. There is a Suudra practicing penance in Raama’s kingdom. Raama sets out to find that evil Suudra and finds an ascetic named Sambuuka practicing austerities and hanging upside down from a tree. He tells Raama that he is a Suudra aspiring to become a god through penance. While he is still speaking Raama beheads him. 32—p.193
32. Ram 7.67.2-4. See also Kaalidaas, Raghuvamsa, 15.49-50; Bhavabhuuti, Uttararamacarita, 2.8—p.193
…Medhaatithi (ninth to tenth centuries C.E.), commenting on Manu (MDh 6.97) interprets the first passage to mean that Suudras do not actually assume the aasramas but only obtain their fruits by their lifelong service:
…By living as a householder while serving twice-born people he obtains the fruits of all the aasramas, with the exception of liberation, which is the fruit of renunciation.—p.194
In the case of Suudras, as with women, we must distinguish the issue of legitimacy in the eyes of theology from legality and historical fact. 36 Most, if not all, Braahmanical authorities consider the asceticism of Suudras as illegitimate and, as exemplified in the episode of Raama’s beheading of Sambuuka, attempt to co-opt the civil authority to enforce that rule. 37 There is ample historical evidence, however, to show that Suudras and low-caste people in general did become ascetics and that their ascetics status was recognized by the civil authority.—p.194
36. The inability or unwillingness to distinguish these issues has led to much confusion. See, for example, Kane 1974,II.2, 942-46; Chakraborti 1973, 90-99; Sharma 1939, 63-64
37. A passage ascribed to Kaatyaayana, for example, advises the king to punish a Suudra who takes to renunciation (Kaatyaayanasmrti, 486). –p.194
Evidence of Suudra asceticism is found in the Dharmasaastras themselves. Visnu (5.115) and Yaajnavalkya (2.235)….Arthasaastra (3.20.16)…This general class of renouncers may be intended by Aapastamba (1.18.31) when he lists “one who has improperly renounced” (avidhinaa ca pravrajitah) among people whose food is not to be eaten. This rule implies that people did become ascetics without keeping to the saastric provisions and that such ascetics were generally tolerated by the civil authority.—p.195
…The vast majority of prominent medieval writers, beginning at least with the Advaita theologians Samkara (eighth to ninth century C.E.), support the position restricting renunciation to Brahmin males. Samkara, commenting on the use of the word braahmana in the Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad with reference to religious mendicancy, enunciates this position in the clearest possible terms: “The word ‘Brahmins’ is used because Brahmins alone possess the qualification for abandonment.”..—p.196
Now, it does seem rather strange that Samkara, of all people, should espouse such a view. After all, his entire argument for the legitimacy of the celibate aasramas in general (p.196) and the renouncer’s aasrama in particular is based on the neat division of people into those who are either enlightened or aspire to enlightenment and those who are ignorant. By limiting renunciation to Brahmins, Samkara has in effect restricted enlightenment and even the aspiration to enlightenment to Brahmins. Commenting on the Brhadaaranyaka 4.4.22, furthermore, Samkara acknowledges that people of all three varnas do indeed desire to know Brahman and interprets the term “Brahmins” occurring in that passage as a synecdoche encompassing all three varnas.
Samkara’s pro-Brahmin stand comes out clearly in his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. In his introductory remarks, Samkara observes that the Lord became incarnate in order to protect “the Brahmin state,” because only by protecting it can one guard the vedic dharma. He reiterates this position in commenting on BhG 4.1: the Ksatriyas are made strong so as to protect the Brahmins…—pp.196-197
It is also somewhat surprising that Samkara takes this stand only in the commentary on the Brhadaaranyaka and the Gita. As far as I can tell, he does not broach the subject in the relevant section of his commentaries on the Brahmasuutras or the Chaandogya Upanisad.48
That this was the view of Samkara, however, is confirmed by the fact that his pupil, Suresvara, in his subcommentary on Samkara’s commentary on the Brhadaaranyaka, clearly ascribes this position to his teacher. Suresvara himself disagrees with Samkara and attempts to demonstrate that his teacher is wrong:
Since renunciation is mentioned in the Vedas for all three varnas, the statement of the commentary that renunciation is only for Brahmins stands contradicted.
As the Vedas prescribe renunciation equally for the three varnas, the term “Brahmin” should be taken as a synecdoche. If it be admitted that knowledge annihilates a person’s qualification for rites, on what authority does one forcibly restrict the qualification (p.197) to renounce? If one is able to renounce when one acquires the knowledge of one’s true identity, then whoever has that knowledge should be entitled to renounce.
The fundamental principle of Samkara’s theology is that rites are within the province of ignorance and that it is as impossible for rites and knowledge to coexist as it is for knowledge and ignorance, or light and darkness. Suresvara has taken this teaching of his guru to its logical conclusion by acknowledging that any person who has the knowledge of Brahman has the capacity and qualification to renounce, for otherwise such a person would find himself in the anomalous situation of being in an aasrama which requires him to perform rites while his qualification to perform them has been cancelled by his knowledge of Brahman. Logical conclusions, however, are not always the norm in theological discourse, and Suresvara himself would hardly have defended the capacity of Suudras and women to attain knowledge and to become renouncers.—pp.197-98
48. These works are generally assumed to have been authored by Samkara: see Potter 1982, 111-13. The commentary on the Chaandogya, however, has not been subjected to the same scrutiny as the rest (see section 8.2, n.17). In the Upadesasaahasrii (I.2,10,13,15), another probably authentic work of Samkara, it is assumed that the qualified pupil is both a Paramahamsa renouncer and a Brahmin, but renunciation or the acquisition of knowledge is not explicitly denied to members of other varnas.—p.197
Although Medhaatithi’s argument for taking “twice-born” as referring only to Brahmins is somewhat farfetched—indeed, it is more usual to interpret “Brahmin” as referring to all twice-born—nevertheless, his position highlights the fact the dharmasaastric works were written by and for Brahmins…—p.198
…Archaeological and other evidence suggests a decline and decay of cities in both the north and the south beginning toward the middle of the first millennium C.E., accompanied by the demise of the urban market economy. The resultant dispersal of Brahmin families into the countryside and the emergence of a feudal economy, according to Nandi, (1986) are at the root of several developments in Braahmanical religious practice and ideology, including the temple complexes associated with the bhakti cults as well as the monastic establishments. Both these institutions were dominated by Brahmins and controlled vast agricultural lands. These Braahmanical institutions, furthermore, were patronized by political authorities because they provided the rulers with religious legitimacy.—p.201
…When a man became a Braahmanical renouncer he did not just become a lonely wanderer but entered a monastery (matha) with a hierarchical organization. If we look at the question of who is entitled to become a renouncer in this light, it becomes apparent that what is at issue is the right to become a member of a monastic community with land and a clientele. In spite of what Suresvara says, the major Samkarite mathas that became so powerful during the middle ages were exclusively Braahmanical. For Brahmins, who so vigorously argued for Braahmanical privileges in the Dharmasaastras, it would have been a natural step to limit entry into these rich and powerful institutions to members of their own community–.201
Some writers go a step further, asserting that in this Kali age there are no true Ksatriyas or Vaisyas, leaving only Brahmins and Suudras. If all the castes that pretend to belong to the Ksatriya or Vaisya varnas are in fact Suudras, then in practice the question can be seen as moot. Only Brahmins can renounce, because there are only Brahmins, all others being Suudras and thus clearly excluded from that state.—p.201
When aasrama is coupled with varna to represent the totality of dharma,…–p.202
…Since the householders were the central focus of law even outside the aasrama framework, the special provisions concerning the aasramas focused primarily on the ascetic institutions. The power and social position of ascetic groups and monasteries and the dictates of Realpolitik advocated by political theorists like Kautilya, moreover, compelled Indian kings to take a personal interest in ascetic institutions.—p.204
…Naarada (NSm 18.5) states: “A king, however, should assiduously regulate [or protect] all the aasramas employing the textually prescribed as well as the four basic methods.”79—p.205
79….The four basic strategies are conciliation (saama), giving gifts (upapradaana, bribes?), creating dissension (bheda), and employing force (danda). The term paripaalayet, just as other terms employed to indicate the protective function of kings, implies both protection and regulation/ supervision.—p.205
…Early writers generally permit the remarriage of women whose marriages are thus dissolved. Kautilya (Artha 3.4.37-38) says:
The wife of a man who has been away for a long time, who has become a renouncer, or who has died should wait for seven menstrual periods or, if she has children, for one year. Thereafter she may marry a full brother of her husband.
Naarada (NSm 12.97) concurs: “When the husband disappears, dies, or renouncers, or when he becomes an eunuch or an outcaste—in these five misfortunes another husband is prescribed for women.” (Gautama (GDh 18.15-16), makes a distinction between the absence and the renunciation of a husband and permits remarriage only in the case of the former and not the latter.92
92. Vasistha (17.75-78) and Manu (9.76) do not mention the renunciation of the husband but permit the wife of a man gone abroad for a long time to remarry. There was increasing hostility, however, to the remarriage of widows. Medieval legal digests, therefore, interpret the above passages as referring to a practice of a previous age that is not permitted in the present Kali age. On the question of remarriage, see Kane 1974, II.1.608-19.—p.207
From ancient times the legal tradition recognized the power of properly constituted groups to formulate their own laws. These groups included merchant guilds, trade associations, castes, and, more importantly for out study, ascetic communities. One title of law deals with violations of corporate law, and it was the king’s duty to respect those special laws and to enforce them on the members of the respective groups…—p.209
…The existence of monasteries (matha) is never recognized within Braahmanical dharma, and references to mathas are extremely rare even in texts dealing specifically with the renouncer’s dharma. The laws of Braahmanical renouncers, furthermore, were part of dharma and were theoretically located in the Vedas and Smrtis and not in private corporations. The fact, however, was that different Braahmanical monastic groups, such as the Srii-Vaisnavas and the Samkara mathas, had distinctive rules and practices. The enforcement of these rules, in all likelihood, fell within the same title of law as other corporate bodies.—p.209
Indeed, in modern times heads of some of the leading monasteries, especially the Samkaraacaaryas, “have been in the habit of assuming to themselves jurisdiction over (p.209) persons professing to follow their dogmas in ecclesiastical matters such as prescribing penances for
lapses, settling disputes between castes, and deciding upon questions of outcasting” (Kane 1974, II.2,965-66). It is likely, as Kane has shown (1974,II.2, 965-74), that monastic leaders may have played a similar, although more restricted, role even in medieval times.—pp.209-210
Rev: As I have shown in …of the householder.—p.212
…Unless we are ready to accept total inconsistency, moreover, it is doubly unlikely that Gautama and Baudhaayana, who (p.212) rejected the aasrama system outright, would have embraced it within the context of the parisad.—pp.212-13
In spite of the lip service paid here and there to the so-called “common dharma” that aspired to a universal ethic, Braahmanical dharma, as we have seen, was deeply rooted in the hierarchical arrangement of varnas. Every detail from the material of a girdle and the size of a staff to the severity of punishment for crimes was determined by a person’s varna…-p.214
People belonging to different aasramas are assigned different emblems of identification, which they are required to wear. Averse ascribed to Daksa states:
A vedic student is distinguished by the girdle, antelope skin, staff, and the like; a householder by the staff, the broom of sacred grass, and the like; a forest hermit by the (long) nails and hair; and a renouncer by the triple staff. These are their respective marks.—p.214
What our discussion here points to is the progressive integration of the aasramas into the central framework, for so long dominated by the varna ideology, within which Braahmanical theologians understood and explained religious practices, criminal and civil law, and even cosmological and soteriological schemes. A verse ascribed to Yama presents the position of varnaasrama, now considered almost a single category, in Braahmanical theology: “There is none higher than a Brahmin, as there is no one superior to Vaasudeva. There is nothing higher than varnaasrama, and no scripture equals the Veda.”—p.216 ——Rev
…In the most ancient documents these (purusaartha) consisted of three: dharma (“righteousness”), artha (“wealth”), and kaama (“pleasure”). These three came to be known by the shorthand term trivarga (“triple set”). With the advent of moksa (“liberation”) (p.216) as the overarching human concern, the scheme of three was expanded into one of four (caturvarga)…–pp.216-17
The total absence of any primary sources that discuss the aasramas within the context of the purusaarthas make it clear that Braahmanical theology did not perceive these schemes in the same way as modern scholars do. This much can be said with certainty: there is no historical connection between the scheme of the four purusaarthas and the system of the four aasramas. At least in the present case—and, I suspect, frequently elsewhere—the juxtaposition of one set of four with another set of four is purely an act of scholarly imagination.—p.219—Rev
8. The Aasramas System in Medieval Theology
…On the one hand, there is a tendency to discount outward appearances and to emphasize internal qualities. Belonging to socially recognized institutions of holiness and wearing the appropriate insignia of such states do not make a person holy. Yaajnavalkya says that “an aasrama is not the cause of righteousness”5 Manu echoes the same when he says: “Although he may be censured, let him treat all creatures alike and practice righteousness in whatever aasrama he may happen to live, for an emblem is not the cause of righteousness.” 6 The Mahaabhaarata (12.112.13) also says that “an aasrama is not an index of righteousness” and goes on to ask the rhetorical question dripping with sarcasm: “Should one man kill a Brahmin in an aasrama and another present the gift of a cow in a non-aasrama, is the former not a grievous sin, and is that gift given in vain?”7
On the other hand, there is a growing tendency within Braahmanical theology to regard the aasrama scheme as obligatory and to consider non-aasramic states as deficient and even sinful…-p.221
5. Ydh 3.65: naasramah kaaranam dharme.
6. MDh 6.66: duusito’pi cared dharmam yatra tatraasrame vasan/samah sarvesu bhuutesu na lingam dharmakaaranam// The same verse is repeated in the Visnudharmottara Puraana, 2.131.33.
7. MBh 12.112.14: aasrame yo dvijam hanyaad gaam vaa dadyaad anaasrame/kim nu tat paatakam na syaat tad vaa dattam vrthaa bhavet//–p.221
13. For a study of the theological debate on these question [about jiivanmukta] between the Advaita and Visistaadvaita traditions, see Olivelle 1986 and 1987.—p.223
…Once a classificatory system has been established, moreover, it is common to posit a category that transcends that system, a category that represents a more perfect condition than the ones envisaged within the system—a trait that I would call the X + 1 syndrome. It occurs more frequently in sets of four that are formed by adding one to a preexisting three. Sometimes, as in the fifth Veda,16 a fifth category is added to a preexisting four. This tendency manifests itself in the discussions regarding the state beyond the four aasramas, namely the fifth aasrama.—p.223
16. Many texts call themselves the fifth Veda, including the Mahaabhaarata, several Puraanas, and Tiruvaaymoli…-p.223
…Aasrama, just like caste, belongs to the illusory body; it is unrelated to one’s true self:
A person who seeks to obtain the perception of this highest truth should abandon the fivefold desire—the desire for sons, wealth, worlds, and so forth—which results from the mistaken identification of oneself with caste, aasrama, and the like. (Upadesasaaharii 2.1.44)—p.224
17. I will limit myself to the six works regarding whose authenticity there appears to be a scholarly consensus. They are Samkara commentaries on the Vedaantasuutras, the Bhagavad Gita, and three Upanisads—Brhadaaranyaka, Chaandogya, and Taiitiriiya—and his independent treatise Upadesasaahasrii,. See Paul Hacker’s (1978) contributions on Samkara: Nakamura 1983–p. 224
…Samkara thus emphatically rejects the opponent’s identification of renunciation as such with the renouncer’s aasrama—a common enough assumption though it must have been—and makes a sharp distinction between two types of renunciation: renunciation that results from the knowledge of Brahman and renunciation that constitutes an aasrama. It is evident that in the eyes of Samkara the former did not constitute an aasrama. Elsewhere in the same passage he identifies such a renouncer as a Paramahamsa.—p.225
In his commentary on the Brhadaaranyaka Upanisad, 4.5.15, furthermore, Samkara affirms that renunciation is meant not only for those who possess the knowledge of Brahman but also for those who seek to obtain it. In his comments on 4.4.22 of the same Upanisad, he also asserts that those who seek the self abandon all rites and become renouncers. It is, however, uncertain what, if any, distinction Samkara made between the renunciation of an enlightened person and that of a person seeking enlightenment. Such a distinction is common in later Advaita literature, especially in the writings of Vidyaaranya.24—p.226
24. …As my study has hopefully demonstrated, Samkara’s position is much more complex and much less clear.—p.226
Even though Samkara undoubtedly considered at least some form of renunciation to be beyond the modes of life comprehended by the aasramas, he nowhere asserts that such renouncers are not bound by conventional morality or that theirs was a totally antinomian state—a view ascribed, as we shall see, to the Advaita tradition in later theological debates. It is, furthermore, extremely unlikely that he would have espoused such a radical view…—p.227
He is an ativarnaasramin who knows the great God who transcends and witnesses the three states.31 (Suuta Samhita 3.5.18-19)—p.228
He is an ativarnaasramin who knows by means of the Upanisads: “As people carry on their activities on their own in the presence of the sun, so the entire universe carries on its activity in my presence.”32 (SuuS 3.5.21-22)—p.228
31. The three states of consciousness are waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. The fourth state beyond these three is identified with absolute consciousness that constitutes Brahman . The JMV reads transcends the varnas and aasramas and who witness the three states.
32. The meaning appears to be that people perform their respective activities during the day when the sun is shining, but their activities do not relate to or affect the sun. In like manner, the appearance of the universe to a liberated person while he is still in the body does not truly affect him.—p.228
…Visistaadvaita and other devotional sects did not recognize the possibility of a person attaining liberation while still alive in this world.—p. 231
39. This medieval text also bears the alternate title Pancamaasramavidhi [The Procedure for (Entering) the Fifth Aasrama.”]…-p.232
At one point an opponent objects that, following the advice of the Bhagavad Gita 3.20, “Even if you consider only the welfare of the world, you should work,” a renouncer should not abandon the staff and other emblems at least for the welfare of the world. The author retorts: “The welfare of the world (has relevance) only to those who consider the world as real. What does the world’s welfare mean to those who regard the world as unreal? It is of no concern to one whose self is pure consciousness” (Pancamasramavidhaana 14-16)…—p.233
…With reference to the varnas some authors assert that in the Kali there are no true Ksatriyas, while others go as far as to assert that only Suudras are left in this age.53—p.236
53. …For the belief that only Suudras exist today, see the MatsP 144.78, which says that just as there was only one varna in the Krta yuga, so there will be only one, namely Suudra, in Kali. Cf. Kane 1973,III,892.—p.236
…The argument, therefore, was that in the present Kali age renunciation is illegitimate and all contemporary renouncers are in violation of this kalivarjya. Since there are only householders in existence, therefore, a householder may legitimately head a monastery.—p.237
….report of a speech by the then vice-president of India appeared in the Indian Express (May 8, 1978) under the headline “Sanyasis are parasites:”
Who is better—the householder or the sanyasi? Of course, the householder, according to Vice-President B.D.Jatti. While the householder willingly renounces all that he ears to his wife and children for their love and affection, the sanyasi depends on others for his milk and fruits. Parasites, who are a mere burden on society, are sinners. If man has to progress, everybody must work. This message was given by Mr. Jatti while inaugurating the 846th Basava Jayanti Celebration in Bombay on Sunday
The patient reader of this book will no doubt note that Vice-President Jatti was engaging in a debate that had been going on in Indian culture for a couple of millennia and that he was echoing rhetoric that is over 2,000 years old. The Mahaabhaarata already claimed that (p.237) the householder was the true renouncer, the true “eater of what is left over”. The legitimacy of renunciation has been always at the heart of the debate on the legitimacy of celibate aasramas in general and on the relative value of celibacy and marriage.
The creation of the aasrama system and especially of its classical formulation was intended to resolve this controversy and to blunt the opposition between the two ideologies. Many modern scholars, such as Muller (1878, 343) and Deussen (1909, 131), as we have seen (section 1.3.2), appear to have accepted that the aasrama system indeed resolved the issue. A closer examination of the history of the system, however, shows that the issue was never fully settled and that old battles had to be fought over and over again even after the aasramas had become part of the mainstream Braahmanical theology.—pp.237-38 —-Rew, important. (This book deals with the question whether the creation of assrama system (Classical system) resolved the age long issue of householder versus sanyasi and the whole book centers around in discussing in detail to find the answer, particularly in the context of theology of debts)
…Sabara (sixth century C.E.) in his commentary on this suutra (Puurva Miimaamsaasuutra 6.2.31) leaves no doubt that these duties are obligatory on all twice-born people, including the Ksatriyas and Vaisyas, even though the vedic statement on debts (TS 6.3.10.5) speaks explicitly only of Brahmins.—p. 238
…Indian theologians generally present their opponents’ views accurately, and it is safe to assume that, although written by an adversary…-p.239
In his commentary on the Taittiriiya Upanisad (1.12), Samkara presents an opponent as arguing that, since knowledge arises through rites or actions (karma), there is only a single aasrama, namely that of the householder. Samkara in refuting him offers a completely new argument. The daily fire sacrifice and similar rites should not be regarded as the only rites (karma). Celibacy, austerity, truthfulness, self-control, non-injury, and the like that are practiced by renouncers are also karma, and they are powerful instruments for attaining knowledge. Thus the injunctions relating to the performance of karma do not support merely the householder’s mode of life but also the legitimacy of all aasramas. It appears that Samkara here attempts to redefine karma to include also the moral activities of renouncer, an attitude in marked contrast to that adopted by him in his commentaries on the Brhadaaranyaka and the Chaandogya that we examined earlier.—p.242
The controversy regarding the legitimacy of celibate and ascetic ways of life and the relative value of domesticity and asceticism thus continued throughout Indian history. At the heart of these debates was the aasrama system….As recent sociological studies show, the debate apparently continues.—p.243
Epilogue
Ghurye (1964,2) and others have suggested that the best native equivalent of “Hinduism” is varnaasramadharma—the dharma of varnas and aasramas—the unchanging core of that broad and ill-defined tradition. We have see, however, that, when we scratch below the surface, even an institution seemingly as immutable as the aasrama system has undergone drastic changes over time and has been the subject of continuous controversy and debate. How is it then that, despite such historical changes and controversies in the case of even its most central institutions, there is the pervasive and almost unconscious assumption among natives and foreigners alike that India—especially Indian religion and its major institutions and beliefs—is unchanging? If it is an illusion, who has created it? If the illusion has been a lasting one—and the theological speculations regarding dharma and the Vedic tradition appear to indicate that it has been—then what social or human purpose did it serve?–p.244
…Strategies for legitimating the inherited world—strategies in which religious doctrines and institutions play a central role—therefore, are found in every human culture. These strategies, no doubt, are primarily intended to defend the inherited world, to render it more plausible especially to new generations, and to guard it against novelty and change. An important outcome of the same strategies, especially those relating to exegesis and hermeneutics, is to create a perception—even if it is an illusory perception—of the immutability of that world. These strategies and the illusion of immutability they create are as essential for the continuity of human society and culture as are change and innovation.—p.244
…Specifically within the history of religion, Jonathan Z. Smith (1982,43) has drawn the attention of scholars to the significance of the exegetical traditions for the study of religion:
I have come to believe that a prime object of study for the historian of religion ought to be theological traditions, taking the term in its widest sense, in particular, those elements of the theological endeavor that are concerned with canon and its exegesis. That is to say, bracketing any presuppositions as to its character as revelation (and from this question, the historian of religion must abstain), the radical and arbitrary reduction represented by the notion of canon and the ingenuity represented by the rule-governed exegetical enterprise of applying the canon to every dimension of human life is that most characteristic, persistent, and obsessive religious activity. It is, at the same time, the most profoundly cultural, and hence, the most illuminating for what ought to be the essentially anthropological view point of the historian of religion and a conception of religion as human labor. The task of application as well as the judgment of the relative adequacy of particular applications to a community’s life situation remains the indigenous theologian’s task, but the study of the process, particularly the study of the comparative systematics and exegesis, ought to become a major preoccupation of the historian of religion.—p.245
We have seen that the aasrama system was initially presented by its proponents not as something new but as an institution already sanctioned in the Vedas. A new institution was presented within the context of an exegesis of a Vedic text. Objections to the system, as well as subsequent controversies and changes, we have also seen, were carried out within an exegetical setting. Indeed, the entire history of this central institution appears as a long and continuous series of exegetical endeavors by both the proponents and the opponents of the system. The history of the aasrama system—indeed the history of the “Hindu” tradition—can be adequately understood only within what Jonathan Z. Smith calls “the human labor” of theology and exegesis, the same labor whose efficiency and success has produced the marvelous illusion of sanaatanadharma and changeless India.—p.246
Bibliography:
Ghurye, G.S. 1964, Indian Sadhu, 2nd ed. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.
Smith,J.Z. 1982, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Thapar, R. 1982. “Householders and Renouncers in the Brahmanical and Buddhist Traditions.” In Madan 1982, 273-98
Smith, J.Z. 1982. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Book to buy: Halbfass, W. 1988, India and Europe: An Essay in Understanding. Albany: SUNY Press. (For an illuminating discussion of the history and of the scholarly studies of dharma).
Abbreviations:
BaaU: Brhadaarnyaka Upanisad.
MK: Miimaamsaa Kosa; MNP: Aapadeva, Miimaamsaanyaayaprakaasa; MDh Maanava Dharmasaastra (Manusmrti) SB: Satapatha Braahmana; TB: Taittiriiya Braahmana;
Patrick Olivelle, The Aasrama system,The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993.
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