sacrificial fire (the god Agni in material
form). A final chant during the sacrifice
was addressed to Agni. During the
Vedic period, this rite became largely
the province of kings since they were
the only people who could command
the necessary resources for it. With the
later reaction against animal sacrifice,
the rite fell out of favor, although it is
still performed occasionally in a modi-
fied fashion without sacrifice.
Agrahara
A brahminresidential enclave, usually
established by a land grant from a
wealthy land owner or royalty to a par-
ticular brahmin. Brahmins had the
highest status in traditional Hindu
society, based on the belief that they
had higher ritual purity. The purpose
of the agrahara was to protect this rit-
ual purity since it could be compro-
mised fairly easily. Agraharas were
most common in southern India,
where brahmins formed an extremely
small percentage of the general popu-
lation—on average, about four per-
cent. As a small minority, southern
Indian brahmins could maintain a
more controlled environment, thereby
reducing the possibility of having their
purity tainted. In northern India,
brahmins formed a significant part of
the population and tended to live
within the towns and cities, although
they often inhabited particular sec-
tions of these places.
Ahalya
In Hindu mythology, Ahalya is the wife
of the sage Gautama. She is turned into
stone by Gautama’s curse and later
restored to life by being touched by the
foot of the god Rama. Gautama’s curse is
brought on by the actions of the god
Indra, who lusts for Ahalya. One day,
when Gautama has gone to the river to
bathe (snana), Indra takes Gautama’s
form and goes to Ahalya in a bid to make
love to her. Accounts differ on whether
Ahalya is aware of her lover’s identity—in
some she is flattered by Indra’s attention,
in others she is genuinely deceived.
When Gautama discovers what has hap-
pened, he curses Ahalya to become a
stone and Indra to have a thousand vagi-
nas on his body, as a punishment for his
lust. Gautama is later mollified into mod-
ifying the curses, so that Ahalya will
remain a stone until she is touched by
Rama’s foot, and Indra will be covered
instead with a thousand eyes. This story
primarily illustrates the power of the
sages to curse even the gods, but the dif-
ferent versions also reveal varying
assumptions about the nature of women.Aham Brahmasmi
(“I am Brahman.”) In the Hindu philo-
sophical tradition, this is one of the four
“great utterances” (mahavakyas)
expressing an ultimate truth. The
truth expressed in this utterance is the
idea that atman(the individual Self )
and Brahman (Ultimate Reality) are
one and the same—identical; this
truth is at the heart of the speculative
texts called theUpanishads. The four
mahavakyas, aside from their philo-
sophical importance as capsulizing
fundamental truths, were also appro-
priated by the four divisions of the
Dashanami Sanyasi asceticsas iden-
tifying symbols. Each division had a
different mahavakya, just as each had
a different Veda, a different primary
sacred center, and a different
paradigmatic ascetic quality. Aham
Brahmasmi is the mahavakya associat-
ed with the Bhuriwaradivision of the
Dashanami Sanyasis.Ahamkar
(“I-making”) In the Samkhyaschool of
Hindu philosophy, ahamkar is one of
the stages in the evolutionof prakrti
(primal matter) away from its initial
undifferentiated unity toward differen-
tiation of the Self and other things.
The final result of this degradation
is the world that we see around us,
in which human souls are subject toAhamkar