History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c10.17

v1.c10.17

While the old Vedic Agnihotra was still kept up among the Brahmin householders and the sacrificial fire was kindled morning and evening, the later Vedic Sanyāsa was not without its votaries.[*] In every town and in every Hindu temple these Sanyāsis resided and lived by begging and passed their time in calm contemplation or strangely enough as described by Bāṇa, in bowing to the idols in the temple. They are called Pārāśaris in the Harsha-Charita and elsewhere probably because they followed the rules laid down for Sanyāsis by Parāśara. They were generally Brahmins and although they had given up the world and wandered about they lived in towns as sustenance was only obtainable in human habitations. A few of them indeed were really good and learned men but the majority of them were in Bāṇa’s days irreligious and uneducated and had brought their order into contempt. Sanyāsa, therefore, had naturally come at this time into disfavour and Pārāśari had become a synonym for a bad man. Among the associates of Bāṇa in his early undisciplined life he mentions Pārāśaris as well as Bhikshus and in a passage evidencing great power of social observation at page 249 H. C. remarks that there was not a Pārāśari but was not an irreligious man.* They were yet, however, objects of respect and were patronised by kings and grandees, for among the visitors to the Emperor Harsha Bāṇa describes Pārāśaris as well as Buddhist and Jain recluses. (जैनार्हतैः पाशुपतैः पाराशरभिः वार्णिभिः etc. p. 97.)