fires, performing all the time certain exercises, as enjoined in their sacred books, while in the last stage a man is released from all restrictions, and has to live alone and without any feed abode[1]. Some translators have used hermit for the third, and ascetic for the fourth stage. In Sanskrit also there exists a variety of names for these two stages, but the distinctive character of each is clear, the third stage representing a mere retreat from the world, the fourth a complete surrender of all worldly interests, a cessation of all duties, a sundering of all the fetters of passion and desire, and a life without a fixed abode. The modern Mahâtmans should therefore be considered as belonging partly to the third, partly to the fourth or last stage. They are what we should call friars or itinerant mendicants, for it is their acknowledged privilege to beg and to live on charity.
Another name of these Samnyâsins was Avadhûta, literally one who has shaken off all attachments, while in the language of the common people they are often called simply Sâdhus, or good men.
It has sometimes been denied that there are any Samnyâsins left in India, and in one sense this is true. The whole scheme of life, with its four stages, as traced in the Laws of Manu, seems to have been at all times more or less of an ideal scheme, a plan of life such as, according to the aspirations of the Brâhmans, it ought to be, but as, taking human nature as it is, it could hardly ever have been all over India. Anyhow, at present, though
- ↑ Âpastamba II, 9, 22, 21, &c.
