Friday, July 12, 2013

The four stages of life

Originally envisaged as applying to the two uppermost castes. Then the dharmashastras -- check the powerpoint on early India for that one slide on the dharmashastras -- had a lot of debate on who could practice the stages of life, and whether it applied to everyone, regardless of birth.

That debate and what different dharmashastra commentators said, is one axis for ascertaining how conservative or liberal a particular interpretation was.

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