The Ashramas of Hindu Life-The Four Periods of Life.

Four Stages of Life- the Ashramas.

Shakespeare divided life into "seven ages".                                                                                            In our religion, human life is believed to have comprised of four stages.                                                    These are called "ashramas" and every man should ideally go through each of these stages.

·         The First Ashrama - "Brahmacharya" or the Student Stage

·         The Second Ashrama - "Grihastha"     or the Householder Stage

·         The Third Ashrama - "Vanaprastha"    or the Hermit Stage

·         The Fourth Ashrama - "Sannyasa"       or the Wandering Ascetic Stage

·         Although these ashramas are predominantly designed for the male, females too have                                                                                     a vital role to play in each one of them. So women are not actually excluded because                                                                                            they are always supposed to have an active social and religious life at home.                                                                                                  However, a woman's role is of a dependent by nature since, traditionally,                                                                                                                   they need the protection of a responsible male at every stage of life,                                                                                                                               they are expected to follow the path of their husband.

·         This system of ashramas is believed to be prevalent since the 5th century                                                                                                                                                          BC  in our society. However, historians say that these stages of life were                                                                                                                         always viewed more as 'ideals' than as common practice.

o    According to one scholar,                                                                                                                   even in its very beginnings, after the first ashrama, a young adult could choose                                                                                                                        which of the other ashramas he would wish to pursue for the rest of his life.                                                                                                                              Today, it is not expected that a Hindu male should go through the four stages,                                                                                                                       but it still stands as an important "pillar" of our socio-religious tradition

o    .

·         The Sannyasin, is one who neither hates nor loves anything. He is completely independent and is beyond dharma and so in a sense is "beyond good and evil."

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Once detachment, mental and economic independence, is achieved, a Sanyasin                              can return to the town or city.

This stage of life is a necessary condition for the attainment of salvation; once achieved that soul will never individually return to this world.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, these dharma texts elaborated the social doctrine of the four ashramas stages of life. This concept is an attempt at harmonizing the conflicting tendencies of life into one system. It held that a member of all the classes should first become a chaste student brahmachari, then become a married householder grihastha, discharging his debts to his ancestors by begetting sons and to the gods by sacrificing; then retire as a vanaprastha, with or without his wife, to the forest to devote himself to spiritual contemplation; and finally, but not mandatorily, become an ascetic sannyasin. The situation of the forest dweller was always a delicate compromise that remained problematic on the mythological level and was often omitted or rejected in practical life.

Although the status of a householder was often extolled, and some authorities, regarding studentship as a mere preparation, went so far as to brand the other stages as inferior, there were always people who became wandering ascetics immediately after studentship. Theorists were inclined to reconcile the divergent views and practices by allowing the ascetic way of life to those who are, owing to the effects of restrained conduct in former lives, entirely free from worldly desire, even if they had not gone through the traditional prior stages.