ARTICLES: HOUSE OF HERMITS

Eremitism in Hindu India: The Classical Asrama System and the Law of Manu

T

he evolution of Hindu religion from Aryan ritual and sacrifice to a more spiritualized ethical system of meditation and withdrawal from worldly society produced the original asrama system, a system of life vocations or path presented as options for the Brahmanical student (brahmacarya).

 The options were to pursue the life of a householder (grihasthya), forest dweller or hermit (vanaprasthya), or renouncer, wandering ascetic, mendicant (samnyasa).

The student option did not necessarily terminate upon adulthood or maturity, for many students chose to reside with their teacher. The fourth option (samnyasa) was a variant of the third (vanaprasthya), made a distinct path primarily to achieve a numerological harmony of four.

The original asrama system was devised not by reluctant traditionalist Brahmins scheming to contain and defuse the popular movement of renunciation most prominent in the 5th century BCE and thereafter. Rather, sympathetic Brahmins attracted to the new thought of what would become the foundation of yoga and Vedanta non-dualism promoted the options as a vehicle to advance and give concrete expression to the ideals of eremitism.

Researcher Patrick Oliville succinctly describes the two asramas:

In contrast to the original system, the classical formulation considers the asramas not as alternative paths open to an adult male but as obligatory modes of life suitable for different periods of a man's life. Choice, which was a central element in the original formulation, is eliminated, and the asramas are transformed from permanent and lifelong vocations to temporary periods. ... The strictly ascetical modes of life -- those of the hermit and the renouncer -- are recast as institutions of old age.

The classical system relates the successive and necessary stages to age:

  1. student (brahmacarya) - to 25 years of age
  2. householder (grihasthya) - 25 to 50
  3. forest dweller or hermit (vanaprasthya) - 50 to 75
  4. renouncer, wandering ascetic, or mendicant (samnyasa) 75

Having two stages relating to old age and to the context of renunciation is an odd combination and lack of symmetry. Olivelle has speculated a vestigial relationship to the anthropological practice of exiling the old to face death. The oddity resolved itself in the evolution of the classical system: the stage of forest hermit disappeared, or was absorbed in the fourth stage in the development of Vedic sadhus and their successors.

The transformation of the asrama culminated in the early centuries CE, represented by the Law of Manu, a Brahmanical book of codification probably composed in the second century. But the process suggests itself in other documents, each transforming the original asrama as paths into asrama as ladders, a hierarchical ascent based on age.

Thus the Chandogya Upanishad offered the image of human life as a succession of morning, midday, and evening, corresponding to youth, adulthood, and old age. An ancient medical text, the Caraka Samhita (2nd cetury BCE) describes four stages corresponding with age: childhood (1-16), maturation (17-30), adulthood (31-60) and old age (60-100). Here the first two stages were condensed into one, however, in the asrama. Similarly, another medical text, the Susruta Samhita, more explicitly describes the three stages of life as youth (1-16), adulthood (17-70), and old age (over 70). As with aging, the classical system's ladder assumes no return to an earlier stage.

The momentum for the change from original to classical was based on "a growing distaste for permitting choice" on the part of Brahmins in matters of dharma. The concept of dharma at this time brings together a more rigid theology of karma with an external social manifestation of caste. The extension of karma from the moral to the social sphere had the effect of bolstering the caste system as well as solidifying the stages system. The stages system could not be options because dharma as order or law must cover all circumstances of status. Options were inimical to an order prescribed by theology or hermeneutics.

Where the four chief authors of dharmasutras of the centuries BCE (Apastamba, Vasistha, Baudhayana, and Gautama (not to be confused with the Buddha) were not opposed to asrama as options or paths, the chief dharmasutras of the contemporary era chiefly known as Smirtis reformulate the asrama to the rigid classical system. The Smirtis are those of Manu and Yajnavalkya, plus the Visnu Dharmasutra, the Vaikhanasa Smartasutra, and the famous epic Mahabharata. Of these, the law code of Manu is the most influential, and will be examined here.

The Law of Manu: The forest hermit

The law or code of Manu (the Manava Dharmasastra) dates from the first two centuries of the common era and is ascribed by its compilers to Manu, a figure of Vedic mythology counted as the first human being, lending the code substantial authority. Chapter 6 deals exclusively with the forest dweller and the wandering ascetic.

Manu deliberately rephrases the asrama of choice for the asrama of hierarchy, the culmination of a movement of several centuries. It takes the key passage of Vasistha:

After studying one, two, or all the Vedas, one who has not violated the vow of celibacy may enter which of the asramas he prefers.

and changes it:

After studying one, two, or all the Vedas, one who has not violated the vow of celibacy may [or should, depending on the translation] enter the householder asrama. (6, 1)

Given Manu's assumption that the ancient Brahmanic duties of marriage and procreation are ideals, the eremitic focus is only relevant in determining the time of transition from householder to hermit. Thus,

When a householder sees his skin wrinkled, his hair turning white [or gray] and his son's sons, he should go to the forest. Giving up cultivated food and all his belonging,s he should depart into the forest, entrusting his wife to his sons or accompanied by her. (6, 2-3).

No specific age is given but the excellence of the householder's work is deemed complete and he can count upon retirement when he shows age and his son has a son. This formula of renunciation applied socially first to kings and nobles in order to assure peaceful transition of power, but here applies to all "twice-born," excluding the laboring class. The formula required transfer of property and estate, with no claim of authority over children but reciprocally no claim by children over parent.

Renouncing village food means that as a forest dweller he will eat only of the fruits and resources of the forest and thereabouts, to the outskirts of villages.

Taking with him the sacred fires and the implements required for his domestic fire rituals, he should depart from the village to the forest and live there, duly controlling his senses. (6,4)

The twice-born householder maintained sacred fires and rituals, parallel to maintaining household gods in other culture. These rituals were to continue in the eremitic state, according to Manu, but, interestingly, not in the fourth stage.

The next sentences offer a living portrait of the appearance of the hermit.

He should wear a skin or tree-bark garment. He should bathe in the morning and evening. He should wear hair matted or braided, beard and nails uncut. (6.5)

Manu enjoins daily recitation of the Vedas, and outlines the expected ritual sacrifices, emphasizing use of fruits and grains found in the forest. The hermit is now supplying his food by gathering.

Let him eat vegetables that grow on dry land or in water, flowers, roots, and fruits of ritually pure trees, and oils extracted from their fruits [and nuts]. He must avoid honey, flesh, mushrooms ... (6,13)

The injunction against cultivated food keeps the hermit from entering villages and interacting with others, though he is also enjoined to honor visitors to his hermitage by offering of what food he has. The hermit is not to go to a village even if hunger torments him.

The food that the hermit gathers may be ripened or cooked, ground with a stone of eaten raw as is. It may be eaten immediately or stored up to a year, after which, in autumn, he must be rid of it -- as also old garments. The number of daily meals and their quantity is left to the hermit to decide as austerities (tapas). He may follow the lunar practice of daily diminishing his food for the bright half of the month and increasing it during the dark half. Or, he may choose to subsist only on flowers, roots, and fruit which have ripened over time or fallen of their own accord.

Among other austerities mentioned by Manu:

He should roll on the ground or stand on tiptoes all day, or alternatively stand and sit through the day, or go to open plains in summer heat, live in open air during the rainy season, and wear wet clothes during the winter, gradually  increasing the rigor of his austerities. (6, 22-24)

After this regimen, the forest dweller has embraced the full implications of his state. He now begins the transition to the final stage.

He should become a sage without house or fire, wholly silent, subsisting on roots and fruits, making no effort to procure that which gives pleasure, retaining celibacy, sleeping on the ground, remaining unattached to any shelter, making his home at the foot of a tree.

He should beg for alms food, barely enough to support life, only from Brahmin ascetics or other twice-born householders dwelling in the forest. Or, still living in the forest, he may collect alms food from a village, receiving the food in a broken potsherd, a leaf dish, or in his bare hand, eating only eight mouthfuls. (6, 25-28)

Except for living in the forest, the hermit has at this point, in effect, begun the fourth stage. He has the option of begging food in the manner of the fourth stage, the wandering ascetic. However, Manu seems to qualify the latter austerities to Brahmins, concluding by specifically citing this priestly caste.

To enhance his knowledge and ascetic practices and to purify his body, a Brahmin living in the forest must pursue these and other observances pursued by sages and Brahmin householders. To attain the full perfection of self, they must also study the sacred texts contained in the various Upanishads. (6, 29-30)

Finally, seeing his strength ebb:

He may set out walking straight and steadfastly in a north-easterly direction, subsisting on water and air, until his body sinks down to its repose, [that is, until he drops dead]. A Brahmin, having got rid of his body by one of those means employed by the great sages, is exalted in the world of Brahman, free from sorrow or fear. (6, 31-32)

The law of Manu: the wandering ascetic

Manu culminates the forest-hermit stage with that of homeless ascetic. However, the homeless ascetic is distinguished from the wandering ascetic as the fourth stage properly speaking. Manu makes no reference to age, only to the disposition and asceticism of the hermit, as his introduction shows.

After spending the third quarter of his life in this way in the forest, he [the hermit] should cut off his attachments and wander about as an ascetic during the fourth quarter. After he has passed from [Brahmanic] order to order, offering sacrifices, subduing his senses, exhausted by the giving of alms and the making of oblations as an ascetic, he shall attain bliss after death. (6, 33-34)

Manu warns that to become a wandering ascetic, one must have been a householder and have begotten sons, have mastered the Vedic scriptures, and have properly offered sacrifices. Renunciation is here presented as liberation (moksha), whereas forest eremitism was presented in terms of dharma and austerities (tapas). In both cases, the satisfaction of the Brahmanic ideal of householder is maintained, but the necessary requisite to those stages becomes more tenuous.

Manu turns to the particular mode of life of the ascetic wanderer:

He must always wander alone, without companion, recognizing that success comes to the solitary, forsaking no one nor being forsaken by anyone. He shall live without fire, without dwelling, indifferent, deliberate, meditating and concentrating, with equanimity towards all. He will enter into a village to beg his food, keeping no store. A potsherd as his bowl, the foot of a tree his dwelling, worn ragged clothes his garments -- these are marks of the renouncer. (6, 42-44)

The renouncer should neither desire life nor desire death, but wait for his appointed time, as a servant waits for his wages. His speech is purified by truth, as his water is purified by the straining cloth he carries, and his conduct is purified by the clarity of his mind. The ascetic bears with equanimity the harsh or angry words of others, blessing those who curse him and uttering no impure words.

The ascetic passes time sitting in meditation, entirely abstaining from sense enjoyments, himself his only companion, desiring only liberation (moksha). (6, 45-50)

Manu lays out prescriptive practices for obtaining food.

Manu summarizes:

By eating little and passing the day and night in solitude, he pulls the senses back from attraction to sensory objects. By controlling the passions, exterminating love and hatred, and by harming no creature, the ascetic becomes fit for immortality.

This harming of no creatures (ahimsa) is a continuation of a Brahmanic injunction that excepted animals to be sacrificed. The ascetic performs no sacrifices, so his non-violence is complete. Ahimsa became a fundamental tenet of later Hindu practice that applied to an abstention from animal sacrifice altogether. Applied to the ascetic there is an echo of Jain practice, as in this passage:

In order to preserve living creatures, let him always by day and night, even if painful to his body, carefully scan the ground before him as he walks. (6, 68)

A significant expectation of the wandering ascetic (versus the forest hermit) is the practice of meditation, specifically a "deep" or "yogic" meditation. Through meditation, the ascetic reflects on spiritual and mental states that mere Vedic recitation does not address. "By deep meditation, the ascetic can reflect on the subtle nature of the highest self, the supreme Soul, or Atman," states Manu. (6, 65)

The remaining passages of Chapter 6 recapitulate the virtues of the ascetic path and the wisdom of the four stages. They exalts the householder, who is declared to be "superior to all of them, for he supports the other three" stages (6, 89). Manu notes that

The student, the householder, the hermit, and the ascetic -- these constitute four separate orders, which spring from the order of householders. But all or indeed any of the orders, assumed successively in accordance with the institute of sacred law, lead the Brahmin, acting in accordance with its laws, to the highest state. (87-88)

Thus does Manu assert the classical asrama as a set of distinct stages prescribed with the force of dharma.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Editions of the Law of Manu include: Patrick Olivelle: Manu's Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra. Oxford: Oxford University Press; The Laws of Manu, translated by Wendy Doniger with Brian K. Smith. New York: Penguin, 1991, and the older The Laws of Manu, translated, with extracts from seven commentaries, by George. Bühler. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886,reprinted New York: Dover, 1969 and AMS Press, 1971, and online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu.htm. Also Patrick Olivelle: The Asrama System: The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.