I. Historical Period:

1. The Epic and Classical Periods (400 B.C.E. to 600 C.E.)

a. Indo-Aryan settlement into towns and cities on Gangetic plains

i. Absorbing indigenous religions

b. Mahabharata (and Bhagavad-Gita) (between 400 B.C.E. and 400 C.E.)

c. Ramayana (Between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.)

d. Dharmashastras (treatises on dharma) – order, stability, refinement of society

i. Laws of Manu (manavadharmashastra)

1. Varnashramadharma = varna-ashrama-dharma

2. Elaboration of the concept of dharma in sacred laws

a. Dharma as structure, samsara as flow. Yugas, samsara (Cf. Manu 1.81-86)

b. Dharma < dhri, “to sustain” – against the perpetual flow, deterioration

3. Dharmashastras

a. Manu Smrti (200 BCE - 100 CE)

b. Two principle ideals: social life should be organized into well-regulated classes; individual life should have definite stages: varna, ashrama, dharma

II. Ashramadharma: Classical Formulation of the Life Cycle

4. Two Major Syntheses: Ashramadharma and the Bhagavadgita

a. Two principle ideals in the Laws of Manu: social life should be organized into well-regulated classes (varnas); individual life should definite stages (ashramas) = Varnashramadharma

a. The Four Ashramas:

i. Brahmacarya – studenthood. Study of Vedas. Lasting about 12 years after initiation (upanayana). Education in home of preceptor, ritual skills, in exchange for service to teacher. Terminates with marriage.

i. Grhastya – householder. Devoted to enjoyment of life, duties of care for family, acquisition of artha. When cil are adults, temples graying.

ii. Vanaprasthya – life in the forest. Hand over worldly affairs to sons. With wife. Devote oneself to moksha.

iii. Sanyasa – world renunciation. Life of homeless ascetic, possesses nothing, desires nothing but liberation

III. Samskaras: Rites of the Life Cycle

1. Powerful beings: some benevolent, others malevolent

a. Impinge on human existence, must be dealt with

2. Purity and Danger

a. Purity

i. Potential for beneficial contact with deities

ii. Health and well-being

b. Impurity

i. Separation of humans from their deities

ii. Illness, contagion

c. Necessity of dealing with the divine world, difficulty of doing so under conditions of pervasive impurity.

d. Danger

i. Changes in life associated with vulnerability: birth and death

ii. Precautions taken

3. Birth and Early Childhood

a. Purity

i. Chhati after six days (mother’s first bath, solid food, purification of household, unglazed clay pots thrown out, father shaved

ii. Annaprasana (first food): fuller entry into real of purity and impurity

iii. Mundan (cudakarma): haircutting

iv. Infant immunity to impurity: Anidasu (close to Bhagvan)

b. Danger and vulnerability

i. Buri nazar

ii. Bhut-pret

c. Precautions: seclusion within the house, iron, knife, blade (Anidasu photo)

4. Death

a. Intense pollution to close agnates: cut off from normal interactions outside house and with deities; heads shaved

b. Danger to others: bhut-pret. Remain ghost until transformed into ancestral spirit (pitri). Untimely deaths.

c. Cremation: wrapped in cloth, burning ground; heat and then cooling in river

d. Pindas: ritually reconstitute body of deceased as pitri.

e. Feast (on 13^th day) reestablishes normal relations with community

5. Impurity and intimacy

a. Jutha

b. Maternal care