Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute

" The sons of Dlirsta " says the Vispu—Purana "though Ksatriyas by birth became Brahmans; the Rathitaras are termed Brahmans following the profession of Ksatriyas ; the sons of AgniveSya a king of the Solar line became Agnivesyayana Brahmans ; likewise the sons of Harita the son of YauvanaSva are tered Brahmans with the profession of Ksatriyas. Similarly the Gargyas the sons of Garga [...] The Vedantists the Buddhists the Jainas the Kanadas the Viahesikas the Saivites and the Vaisnavites have all accepted the Upanisadic theory of pleasure and preached renunciation of the world and worldly activity for the sake of momentary pleasure as the best means of realising eternal pleasure. [...] The teacher can bring round and set right the conduct of the sensible ; the king will chastise the criminals while Yama the god of death alone is the chastiser Of the worst sinners. [...] Keith ( p. 587) " of the seeker for truth is embodied in the practice of asceticism and the adoption of renunciation : by turning away from the things of the world and by concentrating unnaturally the mind upon the object the vision beatific was to be obtained: the utter incompatibility of this with the purely intellectual view that the recognition of the Brahman as the self was emancipation i [...] The hermitage of Kanva described in the first and fourth acts of the Sakuntala and that of Vasistha in the first canto of the RaghuvanAa are also typical Vanaprastha institutions."A Peep into Ancient Indian Sociology 225 The Devibhagavata ( V. 32) gives a vivid description of the typical hermitage of a hermit called Sumedhas and of the self-denying life which he and other hermits in that hermitag