[Puneet Bansal]

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INTRODUCTION OF ASHRAMS

The Asramas system is one facet of the complex Dharma concept in Hinduism. It is integrated with the concept of “Purushartha”, or four proper aims of life in Hindu philosophy, namely, Dharma (piety, morality, duties), Artha (wealth, health, means of life), Kama (love, relationships, emotions) and Moksha (liberation, freedom, self-realization). Each of the four Asramas of life are a form of personal and social environment, each stage with ethical guidelines, duties and responsibilities, for the individual and for the society. Each Asrama stage places different levels of emphasis on the four proper goals of life, with different stages viewed as steps to the attainment of the ideal in Hindu philosophy, namely Moksha.

In Sanatan Dharma, human life is considered to be of hundred years and each of the four Ashrams is divided into twenty-five years. Vanaprastha is the third among them.

VANPRASTHA: A DETAILED INFORMATION

Vanaprastha literally meaning ‘way of the forest’ or ‘forest road’, is the third stage in the ‘Chaturasrama’ system of Hinduism.

The retirement stage, where a person handed over household responsibilities to the next generation, took an advisory role, and gradually withdrew from the world. Vanaprastha stage was a transition phase from a householder’s life with its greater emphasis on Artha and Kama (wealth, security, pleasure and desires) to one with greater emphasis. This stage typically follows Grihastha, but a man or woman may choose to skip householder stage, and enter Vanprastha directly after Brahmahcharya.

Widgery states that Vanaprastha is synonymous with Aranyaka in historic Indian literature discussing four stages of human life.

Nugteren states that Vanaprastha was, in practice, a metaphor and guideline. It encouraged gradual transition of social responsibility, economic roles, personal focus towards spirituality, from being center of the action to a more advisory peripheral role, without actually requiring someone to actually moving into a forest with or without one’s partner, ultimately transformed into Sanyas.

PRESENT SCENARIO

1. But in present era, most of them stayed with their families and society. They did not gave up their property and other possessions gracefully.

 

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