ASHRAMA

also spelled Asrama, Sanskrit Asrama, in Hinduism, any of the four spiritual abodes, or stages of life, through which the twice-born Hindu ideally will pass. The stages are those of (1) the student (brahmacari), marked by chastity, devotion and obedience to one's teacher; (2) the householder (grihastha), requiring marriage, the begetting of sons, working to sustain one's family and to help support priests and holy men, and fulfilling duties toward gods and ancestors; (3) the hermit (vanaprastha), beginning when a man has seen the sons of his sons and consisting of withdrawal from concern with material things and pursuing solitude and ascetic and yogic practices; and (4) the homeless mendicant (sannyasi), involving leaving the hermitage and renouncing all one's possessions to wander from place to place begging for food, concerned only with the eternal. Traditionally, moksha (spiritual liberation) should be the pursuit of a man only during the last two stages of his life.