Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c15.44

c15.44

Mokṣa differs from the Buddhist Nirvāṇa and either is different from the Jaina idea of salvation. But all agree that the soul must free itself from all material contact to realise the full happiness of which it is capable. The doctrine leads logically to the Nivṛttimārga or the Path of Renunciation, but every one is not ripe for it. One has to live the life of the world until one has reached that stage of spiritual experience and development when worldly relationships and material possessions may be profitably abandoned. It is, indeed, futile to resort to renunciation until one has had sufficient experience of the world. The Viṣṇu Bhāgavata¹ illustrates the point by a significant tale. At the beginning of creation, Brahman ordered his son Dakṣa to go forth and multiply. After practising a good deal of tapas, Dakṣa created successively two bands of 10,000 and 5,000 ‘sons’ called Haryaśvas and Śabalaśvas and sent them to live the life of the world. But the sage Nārada taught ‘the way of the spirit’ to the two groups in succession. So they were lost to Dakṣa. The latter then explained to Nārada that without experience the soul can never realise the sharpness of the sense objects. Every soul should have the opportunity to find salvation through its own experience. Nārada had done wrong in teaching the path of renunciation to innocent souls. He was condemned to everlasting wanderings while his victims were brought out to assume anthropoid forms. The moral of it all is that the Pravṛtti-mārga or the Way of Pursuit should precede the way of renunciation. That is why in the scheme of life prescribed for the twice-born, household life precedes Vānaprastha and Sanyāsa. Even from the point of view of the last two stages, the household is an imperative necessity. The householder alone can support the homeless. There is yet another essential service which he and he alone can render. He offers oblations to departed ancestors. He performs those sacrifices the essence of which sustains the gods in heaven. The household, then, is a thing of the first rate importance. Manu says that men of all stages of life depend on the householder who is the elder of the Brahmachârin, Vânaprastha and Sanyâsin alike.¹