G?hastha: The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture

by Patrick Olivelle (Editor)

Overview

For scholars of ancient Indian religions, the wandering mendicants who left home and family for a celibate life and the search for liberation represent an enigma. The Vedic religion, centered on the married household, had no place for such a figure. Much has been written about the Indian ascetic but hardly any scholarly attention has been paid to the married householder with wife and children, generally referred to in Sanskrit as gṛhastha: "the stay-at-home." The institution of the householder is viewed implicitly as posing little historical problems with regard to its origin or meaning.

This volume problematizes the figure of the householder within ancient Indian culture and religion. It shows that the term gṛhastha is a neologism and is understandable only in its opposition to the ascetic who goes away from home (pravrajita). Through a thorough and comprehensive analysis of a wide range of inscriptions and texts, ranging from the Vedas, Dharmasastras, Epics, and belle lettres to Buddhist and Jain texts and texts on governance and erotics, this volume analyses the meanings, functions, and roles of the householder from the earliest times unti about the fifth century CE. The central finding of these studies is that the householder bearing the name gṛhastha is not simply a married man with a family but someone dedicated to the same or similar goals as an ascetic while remaining at home and performing the economic and ritual duties incumbent on him. The gṛhastha is thus not a generic householder, for whom there are many other Sanskrit terms, but a religiously charged concept that is intended as a full-fledged and even superior alternative to the concept of a religious renouncer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190696153
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	08/08/2019
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 6.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Patrick Olivelle is Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin. He was President of the American Oriental Society. The author of over 30 books and 50 articles, his books have won awards from American Academy of Religion and Association of Asian Studies. His major publications include: Yajñavalkya: A Treatise on Dharma; Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmasastra; Reader on Dharma: Classical Indian Law; King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India; Visnu's Code of Law; The Life of the Buddha; Manu's Code of Law; Upanisads; and Asrama System.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
Contributors

Introduction Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas at Austin

Prologue Whitney Cox, University of Chicago

PART ONE: VEDIC AND PRAKRIT SOURCES

Chapter One
The Term Gṛhastha and the (Pre)history of the Householder
Stephanie Jamison, UCLA
Chapter Two
Pasanda: Religious Communities in the Asokan Inscriptions and Early Literature
Joel Brereton, University of Texas at Austin
Chapter Three
Gṛhastha in Asoka's Classification of Religious People
Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas at Austin
Chapter Four
Gṛhastha in the Sramanic Discourse: A Lexical Survey of House Residents in Early Pali Texts
Oliver Freiberger, University of Texas at Austin
Chapter Five
Gahavai and Gihattha: The Householder in the Early Jaina Sources
Claire Maes, University of Texas at Austin

PART TWO: THE SANSKRIT SASTRAS

Chapter Six
The Late Appearance of the Gṛhastha in the Vedic Domestic Ritual Codes as a Married Religious Professional
Timothy Lubin, Washington and Lee University
Chapter Seven
Gṛhastha, Asrama, and the Origin of Dharmasastra
Patrick Olivelle, University of Texas at Austin
Chapter Eight
The Householder in Early Dharmasastra Literature
David Brick, Yale University
Chapter Nine
Householders, Holy and Otherwise, in the Niti and Kama Literature
Mark McClish, Northwestern University

PART THREE: EPIC AND KAVYA LITERATURE

Chapter Ten
The Gṛhastha in the Mahabharata
Adam Bowles, University of Queensland, Australia
Chapter Eleven
Gṛhasthas Don't Belong in the Ramayana
Aaron Sherraden, University of Texas at Austin
Chapter Twelve
Householders and Housewives in Early Kavya Literature
Csaba Dezso, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

Index

Editorial Reviews

"Patrick Olivelle has put together a collection of fine essays on a figure we thought we knew well: the gṛhastha. Clearly we did not. The scholars featured here will change the way we think." — Gregory Schopen, Distinguished Professor of Sanskrit and Buddhist Studies, UCLA

"This groundbreaking volume develops Stephanie Jamison's singular, stunning discovery — that the gṛhastha ("stay-at-home") in his foundational context is not identifiable with the Vedic married householder, but rather a non-peripatetic religious specialist. Eleven essays following hers extend Jamison's philological study of this social institution to classical Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Simply put, Gṛhastha offers a paradigmatic model for the collaborative, scholarly examination of history through philology." — John Nemec, Associate Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies, University of Virginia

Director, Jonathan Edwards Center, Yale University

"For centuries the figure who evoked India to the West has been the ascetic, the yogi, the religious loner, the person who renounced home and family. Yet through all those years it has actually been householders who set most of the tone and terms of Hindu life. This book gets at the roots of the concept "householder," and we are guided, appropriately enough, not by a lone scholar but by a team — members of the distinguished academic family gathered around Stephanie Jamison and Patrick Olivelle." — Jack Stratton Hawley, Claire Tow Professor of Religion, Barnard College, Columbia University

From the Publisher