ideally this endeavor should be subordinated to dharmaand combined with
detachment (virakti) and the love of one’s chosen personal deity (is.tadeva,
is.tadevı ̄). As a well-known Pandit poet, Krishna Razdan (1850–1925), who was
a devout Vais.n.va, put it: “Why should we renounce the lovely world?/ Our love
of Him is our austerity.. .” (Cook 1958).
The Pandit’s ideology of the householder is, in fact, more than just that: it is
their ideology of humanity. While all sentient beings are born (and die), human
beings are made and matured through the sam.ska ̄ras and achieve different
degrees of moral perfection by their conduct. A boy attains the ritual status of
an adult when he receives the girdle (mekhala ̄) and the holy neck threads
(yajñopavı ̄ta). In the case of girls, it is marriage that bestows similar status on
them. Marriage is crucial for men as well as women for it is only through it that
they become householders. Bachelors, childless widowers, and widows are nor-
mally members of households but not themselves gr.hastha, and are therefore
considered unfortunate. The greatest desire of a Pandit, whether man or
woman, is to be a full-fledged householder.
The Pandit ideology of the householder is constructed around men. Women
and children are spoken of in relation to them. But the men themselves recog-
nize that in the reality of everyday life women are significant role players. They
are referred to as gr.hasthadha ̄rinı ̄, the upholders and the bearers of the burden
ofga ̄rhasthya. A man works out his destiny as a Pandit and a human being in
the company of women: without them his ritual, personal and social life is
incomplete. Among the most coveted meritorious acts that a Pandit may
perform, the giving away of his daughter in marriage (kanya ̄da ̄na) ranks very
high. Men are hierarchically superior to women, but it is together with them that
they constitute the core of the life of the householder.
Being a Pandit is as much a concern of women as it is of men. In the domain
of domestic activity, however, women’s roles are different, and their work in the
kitchen as well as their participation in religious rites is severely but discretely
restricted during the periods of menstruation. Moreover. women do not offer
water and food to ancestors; they do not have the ritual status and authority to
initiate their sons into adulthood or give their daughters in marriage. And yet
the wife is always present by the husband’s side on all major ceremonial occa-
sions. She is one-half of his self (ardha ̄n.ginı ̄).
The ideology of the householder clearly establishes the Pandit as the man-in-
the-world. Such a person’s prime concern in the midst of worldly activities is
with the maturation of his self. This is ensured if he organizes his domestic life
in strict conformity with traditional purposes (purus.a ̄rtha), employing appropri-
ate procedures for their achievement. Release from the chain of transmigration
(sam.ska ̄ra) is a high but frankly distant goal – so distant indeed as to be virtually
beyond reach. A prudent person concentrates on the slow but steady accumu-
lation of merit by the conscious effort to lead a disciplined life.
Renouncers are conspicuous by their absence in Pandit society. Self-styled
renouncers are distrusted as men who, with a failed domestic life behind them,
300 t. n. madan