The Colas c33.34

c33.34

The ascetics owned no property themselves; but their organisations, the monasteries (*maṭhas*), often owned vast estates devoted to their maintenance and the encouragement of learning and the arts. What proportion of the population led such a life of pious, if not uneasy, poverty, and whether it was a larger one than at present, it is of course difficult to determine. The times were quite favourable to the ascetic ideal, and all religious systems in the country applauded it. Asceticism was twice blessed; he who turned ascetic and he who did not do so, but remained householder, alike gained by it. Both accumulated religious merit, for the householder was assured of a good berth in the other world as much for his gifts (*dāna*), as the ascetic for his renunciation and austerity. There was no doubt many a pious fraud masquerading under the garb of asceticism that often afforded the occasion for a good joke among the populace whose common sense was seldom slow in detecting such cases. But the modern attitude which, in the name of economics, counts each man a hand, and looks upon a mendicant as an idle hand, was altogether unknown. And in spite of its excesses and aberrations, the ascetic ideal has done great good to the people by stressing the higher values of the spirit, and by giving them a ready-made philosophy with which to face the hard realities of life. It is still cherished by the masses of the people, in the villages, though not so much in the cities.