The Philosophy of the Upanishads c12.s3.t2.17

c12.s3.t2.17

The strife with this internal foe is *tapas* (asceticism), the victory over it *nyâsa* (self-renunciation), and in these are contained the two fundamental ideas, around which the ethical thought of the Upanishads moves. *Tapas* has been already discussed in detail;³ and we will only add here that in Mahânâr. 8 all virtues are quite correctly explained as *tapas*, while according to Mahânâr. 62. 11 “all these lower mortifications”¹ are surpassed by *nyâsa*, self-renunciation. More importance than to isolated expressions of this character attaches to the fact that in course of time the ancient traditional life-stages of the *brahmac'ârin* and *grihastha* had a third and a fourth added to them, in which these two supreme virtues were incorporated as it were, *tapas* as *vânaprastha*, and *nyâsa* as *sannyâsin*. These four life-stages of the Brahman—as student, householder, anchorite and wandering beggar—in which according to a subsequent view the life of every Indian Brâhman should be spent, were at a later time very significantly named *âs'ramas*, i.e. “places of mortification.”² The whole life should be passed in a series of gradually intensifying ascetic stages, through which a man, more and more purified from all earthly attachment, should become fitted for his “home” (*astam*), as the other world is designated as early as Rigv. X. 14. 8. The entire history of mankind does not produce much that approaches in grandeur to this thought.