There were four stages (ashramas) in the life of a
twice-born man, that is, a man born into one of the three
"twice-born" groups in Indian society—brahmin, kshatriya, or
vaishya—who are eligible for the adolescent religious initiation known as the
"second birth," as described in the dharma literature.
Immediately after this initiation, the young man would live
as a celibate student (brahmacharin) in his guru's home, studying the Vedas.
The householder (grhastha) was the second stage, in which he
would marry, establish a family, and participate in worldly activities.
As a forest-dwelling hermit (vanaprastha), he would
gradually separate himself from worldly entanglements in the third stage.
The last level was as a complete renunciant (Sanyasi), who
has given up all in the pursuit of religious truth.
These four phases represent an idealistic evolution and
should not be interpreted as depicting real practice, since most men never go
beyond the householder stage and have no desire to do so.
The conflict between two different kinds of religious
life—that of the householder, who is grounded in the world, and that of the
ascetic, who renounces the world—lies underneath this idealized process.
The latter ideal was developed by religious adepts known as
shramanas and evolved into Buddhist and Jains monastic austerity, which was
seen as a higher religious path to the householder's existence.
Both of these organizations were powerful—the Jains had a
large role in southern Indian culture until the ninth century C.E.—and it is
widely assumed that the four ashramas emerged as a method to appropriate and
convert this ascetic tension.
The four-stage concept established a place and time for
asceticism, but only as the last level, at the conclusion of one's life.
The obvious message was that one should only pursue religious
truth after meeting one's societal and familial obligations.
