prevailing consensus regarding a ̄s ́ramas as stages of life may be illustrated by
referring to two widely read studies of Hinduism by Zaehner (1962: 146–50)
and Flood (1996: 61–5, 87–90). In considering the householder’s state the very
foundation on which the other states rest, contemporary scholarly opinion
follows the standard reading ofMa ̄nava Dharmas ́a ̄stra.
The influence of Indology on social-anthropological studies of the family and
household in Hindu society has been negligible. Indeed many anthropologists
and sociologists writing in the 1950s and 1960s emphasized the desirability of
freeing ethnographic inquiry from Indological assumptions about the character
of the Hindu family and the household (see e.g. Shah 1973). The one major dis-
senter was Louis Dumont, who maintained that the sociology of India should lie
at the confluence of the findings of Indology and the sociological vantage-point
(1957: 7). Following this methodological perspective, he produced a seminal
essay on world renunciation in Indian religions in which he suggested that “the
secret” (or core principle) of Hinduism (and the structure of Hindu society) may
be found in “the dialogue between the renouncer and the man-in-the-world”
(Dumont 1960: 37–8).
As Heesterman has pointed out, “In the classical Brahmanic view the pivotal
actor on whom the dharmaturns is the typical man-in-the-world, the substan-
tial ‘twice-born’ householder, the gr.hastha” (Heesterman 1982: 251). He dis-
agrees with Dumont regarding the notion of the dialogue because, according to
him, the renouncer and the householder lack a common ground, and stand for
genuinely dichotomous, mutually antagonistic – rather than complementary –
lifestyle choices. What interests us here is that both recognize the traditionally
central position of the householder in Hindu society.
Taking that agreement as the point of departure, we now turn to an exami-
nation of the ethnographic evidence accumulated in the recent past.^2
The Householder in Ethnography
In the clarification of the definitional conventions (in the first section of this
chapter), the attention paid to the house may have seemed somewhat excessive.
In the classical textual tradition, the building of temples, royal palaces, and cities
expectedly received much more attention than ordinary houses (Rowland
1953), but some of the basic principles (concerning, for example, the choice of
the site and the size and orientation of the building) were the same. The applic-
ability of these principles to house building varied according to the varn.aof the
household, more choices being open to the Brahmans and Ks.atriyas than to the
others. The abundance or meagerness of the material resources of the house-
hold also was a significant factor influencing if not determining the choices that
were made. Some of the traditional considerations have survived until today;
indeed there is today a resurgence of interest in urban India in vedic architec-
tural principles of house-making.
the householder tradition in hindu society 295