Mudgalapurana 3.19: āśramadharmavarṇanaṃ nāma ekonaviṃśatitamo'dhyāyaḥ

Salutations to the glorious Gaṇeśa!

Nara and Nārāyaṇa said: / Then, having shaved his head, devoted to father and mother, / devoted to the twice-born and deities, the twice-born should take up residence in his own home.

He should then choose a bride younger in age, / endowed with noble family, good conduct, and the rest, complete in all her limbs.

He should approach his wife in the fertile period for the sake of offspring; / desiring to satisfy gods, brahmins, and guests, he should remain as a householder.

Sacrificing for oneself, officiating at sacrifices for others, giving, studying, / receiving gifts, and teaching: he should perform these six duties.

Bathing, twilight worship, recitation, oblations into the fire, hospitality, worship of deities, / personal recitation of the Veda, and the Vaiśvadeva offering: the householder should perform these daily.

And the observance of the Fourth is foremost and must be performed by those in the stages of life; / so too other observances and the like should be performed especially.

One devoid of the observance of the Fourth has no right to any observances at all; / he must surely always remain pure, free from the four faults.

He who eats food on the fourth day of the bright fortnight, O great sage, / is surely considered a meat-eater and becomes a dweller in hell.

He should perform the daily fire sacrifice, and likewise ancestral rites and the like, O sage; / always full of compassion, he should abide living in the house.

That householder should never eat what is unfit to be eaten; / he should be endowed with cleanliness and right conduct, and bound by vows.

He should perform water offerings to the ancestors, deities, and sages; / the five great sacrifices and all [such rites] are proclaimed as daily in the scriptures.

It should be performed by the householder according to his means. / Hear now, O great sage, the dharma that has been taught in that regard:

The householder should gratify his sons, wives, and dependents with one half, / his friends with one fourth, and the deities and others with one fourth.

Thus the householder should practice multifaceted dharma; / when his lifespan reaches the third portion, he should become a forest-dweller.

Having placed his wife in the care of his sons or together with his wife, / an ascetic, he should go to the forest for the sake of dharma and the accomplishment of rites.

Whether sons have been born or have not been born, he should nevertheless go to the forest; / he should perform austerity there, eating fruits, roots, and the like.

With forest-produce he should perform the fire oblation and the worship of guests; / and the forest-dweller, abiding in diverse austerities, should practice [this].

Even though his wife resides nearby, the forest-dweller, O noble one, / should never engage in sexual union, even in thought.

He should subsist on wind and the like, and practice breath-control alone; / and through control of the breath, O lord among brahmins, he should practice, dwelling in the forest.

Practicing the five fires penance in summer, dwelling in water in winter, / and staying under the open sky in the rainy season, so should the forest-dweller be.

Even in times of distress, the forest-dweller should never dwell in a village; / no entry into a village should be made by that noble-minded soul.

In this way, entering the forest-dwelling stage, he should observe diverse duties; / when the fourth portion of his lifespan arrives, O sage—

Remaining [firm] in the fourth portion of his lifespan, he should undertake renunciation (saṃnyāsa). / Then he should also be permitted [to do so] by his wife, having abandoned hope in him.

Permission should especially be given to him by the wife. / She herself should emaciate her body in austerity until death.

Having placed the sacred fire (agnihotra) in his own body, in the self by virtue of single-minded nature, / and becoming desireless, he should wander over this earth.

With the attitude 'I am Brahman' and through the progression of the stages of yoga, / (

Section 3, Chapter 19, Page 39) the yogin becomes a renunciant (saṃnyāsī), free from the ground of mental fluctuations.

Engaged in the renunciation of ritual actions and the like, he should wander wherever [he pleases]; / devoted to renunciation, he should dwell in a village for only one night.

Free from the pairs of opposites, he should always go about for alms, / or the renunciant may always use his hands as an alms-bowl, O sage.

That renunciant using his hands as an alms-bowl, O great sage, / obtains at every mouthful the merit of a horse-sacrifice and the like; of this there is no doubt.

During the four rainy months (cāturmāsya), he should dwell in lands such as sacred sites and pilgrimage centers, / having conquered his senses and conquered his vital breaths, unattached in all actions.

Non-violence is the supreme dharma, especially for renunciants; / he should never, ever cut even grass and the like, O best of Brahmins.

The renunciant who carries the three staffs (tridaṇḍī) is called a kuṭīcaka; / I shall explain the rule concerning him; listen, O best of sages!

Constant practice of one's own dharma is called the staff of the body; / silence consisting of speech is proclaimed as the second staff.

Just as the mind remains everywhere devoid of taste [for objects], / so it must be made by him; that is proclaimed as the staff of the mind.

The yogin should move the hut consisting of the body like a reflected image; / and having become Brahman in Brahman, he is called a kuṭīcaka.

Then, O sage, the yogin becomes a bahūdaka holding two staffs; / because he is free from the staff of the body, he especially moves according to his own will.

Just as water situated in a single pit is drawn by all, / yet no fault of men exists in that pit at any time,

so the self, residing in the body, possessing four bodies, is distinct / from transformation; it is certainly never tainted by those faults anywhere.

Reflecting 'I am That', established in Brahman, devoid of distinction, the great sage, / detached from the body and the like, is proclaimed a bahūdaka.

Then the haṃsa stage of life is declared, bearing the staff in the mind; / free from the staffs of body and speech, he is regarded as moving according to his own will, O sage.

In the union of the body and the embodied self, Brahman is understood to consist of pure consciousness; / established there, the yogin himself becomes absorbed in that duality.

The pair [of opposites] consisting of water is proclaimed to have the nature of the body and the embodied; / there, Brahman is the milk, and the swan (haṃsa) is the grasper of it.

Next is the paramahaṃsa, devoted to the staff of knowledge; / he is proclaimed to be free from the staffs consisting of body, speech, and mind.

Brahman identified with the body and the embodied is particularly full of delusion; / and that which has an object is proclaimed to be the duty devoted to the haṃsa.

The supreme Brahman which is always of the nature of the witness, O great sage— / established there, the great yogin is divided into three aspects:

'I am not the body, nor do I dwell in the body, nor do I consist of the body and the embodied'; / established always in the nature of the witness, he becomes composed of knowledge and bliss.

Whatever ignorance he might have, all of that arises from transformation; / having abandoned that, free from the pairs of opposites, he himself acts according to his own will.

This fourfold renunciation is dependent on that stage of life (āśrama); / through the yoga 'I am Brahman', a man becomes Brahman.

If renunciation is made with a mind that still takes pleasure / in sense objects and the like, O sage, he will go to hell.

If even a single cowrie shell is accepted by him, O great sage, / then he will certainly fall into the Kumbhīpāka hell for a thousand years.

If the desire for the pleasure of intercourse with a woman arises / in his mind even for a moment, then, O Brahmin, he becomes equal to the slayer of a thousand cows.

In the Kṛta age, the mind of men was always subdued by means of dharma; / (

Section 3, Chapter 20, Page 40) meditation was made primary there, and through it everything was obtained.

In the Tretā age, the mind was fickle because of the loss of one quarter of dharma; / austerity was made primary there, and through it a man obtained everything.

In the Dvāpara age, where bodily hardship did not exist, / the practice of one's own dharma was primary, and through it a man obtained everything.

In the Kali age, dharma is gradually destroyed by the demonic disposition; / there, merely by remembrance of the Name, a man obtains everything.

In the path of remembrance of the Name, there is no system of class and life-stage (varṇāśrama); / renunciation and virtuous conduct exist there, and by that the demonic is destroyed.

In the Kali age, due to the abundance of the demonic, there is no fitness for renunciation; / the body, mind, and the like are fickle, and through that one will be ruined.

He who is truly free from class and life-stage (varṇāśrama) / has no staff; in the Veda, he is called staffless (adaṇḍī).

By renouncing even the staff of knowledge, a man himself becomes a yogin; / and free from prohibition and injunction, he becomes intent on the dharma of his own will.

If something to be done is enjoined for him even in the Vedas, / then that creature is certainly bound by injunctions.

When it is declared in the Veda that nothing should be done by him, / then that man is bound by prohibitions, O respect-giver.

Therefore, the yogin is proclaimed to be free from both injunction and prohibition; / the conduct practiced by him is itself what bestows yoga upon him.

Therefore, O highly fortunate one, the yogin is proclaimed to be free of any staff; / free from class and life-stage, he becomes one who has become Brahman.

He is indeed named Vināyaka, being himself free from leaders (nāyaka); / therefore the yogin is proclaimed to be the leader of all.

If, having become Brahman in Brahman through the practice of yoga, / he remains in the system of class and life-stage by his own will, O sage,

he should constantly practice dharma for the sake of holding the world together (lokasaṅgraha), / indifferent to the enjoyment of dharma; such is also the teaching.

Thus the path of the stages of life has been told to you, O great sage; / know that everything created by Māyā consists of wandering.

Oṃ tat sat. Thus ends the nineteenth chapter, named 'Description of the Duties of the Stages of Life', in the account of Mahodara in the third section of the glorious, ultimate Purāṇopaniṣad, the venerable Maudgala Mahāpurāṇa.