Caste in India: The Facts and the System c7.s2.49

c7.s2.49

Some retire into solitude in order to give themselves up to a life of austerities. Others, still more detached from the world, become mendicant ascetics. In the hands of the theorists these four conditions become regular stages which are to all appearance obligatory in the career of a Brahman. Are we to take these requirements seriously? We should be very wide of the mark if, following the texts, we were to imagine all Brahmans addicted solely to study and penance, dividing their career into four periods and dedicating the two last to the life of a hermit and to the profession of a wandering fakir! The editors of the books have simply welded into a system certain isolated and more or less exceptional facts, and lent an imperative aspect to what was no more than a rarely achieved ideal of perfection. In the same way, have we not seen a literary theorist creating a dramatic category out of a single play,¹ and converting a particular case into a universal rule?