Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s13.t5.1

c12.s13.t5.1

The Dharma sūtras speak of four stations of life (āśramas), student, householder, ascetic and forest-dwelling hermit. The last two stages were devoted to a life which stood in contrast to that of the first two. While the former emphasised a life of Karma or ordained acts, the latter showed the path of contentment, renunciation and the seeking of the knowledge of the soul or ātman as the means to the supreme welfare. The older Upanishads must have certainly come into being by this time and the path of ātmajñāna declared by them greatly prized. We know from Pāṇini that there were already in his days codified Sūtras bearing on the life and conduct of Bhikshus or mendicants by two different authors Pārāśarya and Karmanda (IV. iii. 110-1). These Bhikshus were also known as Parivrājakas and Maunins as the Dharma Sūtras show (Āpast. II. 9.21; Baudh. II. vi. 14; Gaut. III. 2). Gautama (III. 10. 11) refers to Upanishads and Vedānta and in the Adhyātmapaṭala (I. 8. 22-23) of the Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra we have an epitome of the doctrine of Ātmajñāna as taught in the Upanishads. However the general teaching of the Dharma Sūtras was in favour of combining an observance of Dharma with Jñāna as can be seen in Āpastamba (II. 9. 21) who refutes the doctrine of Jñāna as the sole means of welfare. The Vānaprastha of these texts is identical with Strabo’s Hylobioi or forest dwellers, a subdivision of the Śramaṇas (Greek sarmanes); their mode of life was regulated by the institutes of their school, and Baudhāyana (II. 6. 14) defines Vānaprastha as one who follows the institutes of the Vaikhānasa Śāstra which was thus a text in existence at that time.