Note 81 — The Eleventh New Year’s Feast after the auspicious Accession.

The learned of India have established four modes of life for the caste of brahmins, which is the most honoured of the castes of Hindus, and have divided their lives into four periods. These four periods they call the four āsram.81 The boy who is born in a brahmin’s house they do not call brahmin till he is 7 years old, and take no trouble on the subject. After he has arrived at the age of 8 years, they have a meeting and collect the brahmins together. They make a cord of mūnj grass, which they call mūnjī, in length 2¼ gaz, and having caused prayers and incantations to be repeated over it, and having had it made into three strands, which they call sih tan, by one in whom they have confidence, they fasten it on his waist. Having woven a zunnār (girdle or thread) out of the loose threads, they hang it over his right82 shoulder. Having given into his hand a stick of the length of a little over 1 gaz to defend himself with from hurtful things and a copper vessel for drinking-water, they hand him over to a learned brahmin that he may remain in his house for twelve years, and employ himself in reading the Vedas, which they believe in as God’s book. From this day forward they call him a brahmin. During this time it is necessary that he should altogether abstain from bodily pleasures. When midday is passed he goes as a beggar to the houses of other brahmins, and bringing what is given him to his preceptor, eats it with his permission. For clothing, with the exception of a loin cloth (lungī) of cotton to cover his private parts, and 2 or 3 more gaz of cotton which he throws over his back, he has nothing else. This state is called brahmacharya, that is, being busied with the Divine books. After this period has passed, with the leave of his preceptor and his father, he marries, and is allowed to enjoy all the pleasures of his five senses until the time when he has a son who shall have attained the age of 16 years. If he does not have a son, he passes his days till he is 48 in the social life. During this time they call him a grihast, that is, householder. After that time, separating himself from relatives, connections, strangers, and friends, and giving up all things of enjoyment and pleasure, he retires to a place of solitude from the place of attachment to sociality (taʿalluq-i-ābād-i-kas̤rat), and passes his days in the jungle. They call this condition bānprasta,83 that is, abode in the jungle. As it is a maxim of the Hindus that no good deed can be thoroughly performed by men in the social state without the partnership of the presence of a wife, whom they have styled the half of a man, and as a portion of the ceremonies and worshippings is yet before him (has to be accomplished), he takes his wife with him into the jungle. If she should be pregnant, he puts off his going until she bear a child and it arrive at the age of 5 years. Then he entrusts the child to his eldest son or other relation, and carries out his intention. In the same way, if his wife be menstruous, he puts off going until she is purified. After this he has no connection with her, and does not defile himself with communication with her, and at night he sleeps apart.84 He passes twelve years in this place, and lives on vegetables which may have sprung up of themselves in the desert and jungle. He keeps his zunnar by him and worships fire. He does not waste his time in looking after his nails or the hair of his head, or in trimming his beard and moustaches. When he completes this period in the manner related, he returns to his own house, and having commended his wife to his children and brothers and sons-in-law, goes to pay his respects to his spiritual guide, and burns by throwing into the fire in his presence whatever he has in the way of a zunnar, the hair of his head, etc., and says to him: “Whatever attachment (taʿalluq) I may have had, even to abstinence and worshipping and will, I have rooted up out of my heart.” Then he closes the road to his heart and to his desires and is always employed in contemplation of God, and knows no one except the True Cause of Being (God). If he speak of science it is the science of Vedānta, the purport of which Bābā Fig͟hānī has versified in this couplet—