concept and is absent outside Brahmanical discourse. It referred originally to
habitats and life styles of exceptional Brahmins living apart from society and
devoted solely to austerities and rituals.
The creators of the a ̄s ́ramasystem took this term and concept and extended
it to all the legitimate modes of life, especially to celibate asceticism. Evidence
does not support the common assumption that the system was created by con-
servative Brahmins with the intention of resisting the new religious movements
and of safeguarding Brahmanical religion by incorporating the renunciatory
lifestyle into a scheme that would lessen its impact and reduce or eliminate the
conflict between it and the life of the householder. Elements of such a motive
may be detected in the later “classical” form of the system I will discuss below.
But the original system gives equal weight to all a ̄s ́ramasand, quite contrary
to the normal Brahmanical attitude, gives the candidates total freedom of
choice among the competing modes of life. Permitting choice, indeed, placed
renunciation and celibacy on an equal footing with household life. The authors
of the system in all likelihood came from the antiritualistic tradition within
Brahmanism, a tradition that finds expression in some of the Upanis.ads. In light
of the socioeconomic conditions of northern India during this time with possi-
bly the beginning of the Maurya empire, I am inclined to believe that the a ̄s ́rama
system was an urban invention, or at least reflects the openness of an urban
mentality. This is reflected in the very nature of the original a ̄s ́ramasystem. It
envisaged the a ̄s ́ramasas voluntary institutions. People are free to choose what
they want to be as adults. The same principle was the basis of other voluntary
organizations of the time, such as Buddhist and Jain monastic orders.
This novel proposal did not go unchallenged. Indeed, some of the earliest
sources that record the a ̄s ́ramasystem present it as an opponent’s view that is to
be rejected. One important argument used against the a ̄s ́ramasystem was the
theology of the three debts. The obligation to father offspring is clearly stated in
the authoritative texts of the Veda. This injunction contradicts the central pro-
vision of the a ̄s ́ramasystem permitting a man to become a celibate renouncer
prior to marriage.
By the beginning of the common era, however, the a ̄s ́ramasystem underwent
drastic changes that culminated in its classical formulation. The a ̄s ́ramasare now
envisaged not as alternate modes of life but as stages an individual goes through
as he grows old. The first a ̄s ́ramain the new scheme is identified with the
temporary period of study following vedic initiation. After completing this stage,
a young adult got married and raised a family; this is the second a ̄s ́rama. When
the householder had settled his children, he withdrew into the forest as a hermit.
After a period of time in this stage, the man became a renouncer during the final
years of his life. Here a ̄s ́ramasare temporary modes of life corresponding to dif-
ferent age groups, and choice is eliminated. This formulation reasserts the cen-
trality of the householder; the productive years of an adult’s life are spent as an
economically productive head of a household. The classical formulation also
avoided the problems posed by the theology of debts. In the new system a man
only took to renunciation and celibacy after he had fulfilled his obligations to get
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