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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. IV These evidences of distinctive marks of the Vanaprastha life are also corroborated by the Arthaŝastra in which it is stated that the duty of a forest recluse (Vanaprastha) is "observance of chastity, sleeping on the bare ground, keeping twisted locks, wearing of dear skin, fire-worship, ablution, worship of gods, ancestors and guests and living upon food stuffs procurable in forests."
This third stage of austerities and meditation prepared the ground for further spiritual progress of the forest recluse towards his attainment of final emancipation from the worldly bondage in the fourth Asrama called Sannyasa.
Fourth Stage of Life (Parivrājaka-Anāgāra).
The BhS gives a graphic account of the fourth stage of life of an individual by making incidental references to the undertaking of the state of houselessness by the forest recluse, Siva (Vanaprastha tapasa) and the ascetic (Parivvayaga). Skandaka of the city of Sravasti respectively.
The term 'Parivvayage's used here and in other texts' denotes the ascetic of the fourth stage, who has renounced the world completely and devoted and dedicated himself to the attainment of perfect knowledge, truth, highest spiritual realization and final liberation from the bondage of mundane life.
In the Vanaprastha stage one day sometime 'Vibhangajana' (transcendental knowledge with an unbeliever) of the royal sage Siva was born in him, while practising austerities. He saw only seven islands and seven seas in the Universe with the help of that awakened knowledge, but beyond that he did not see and know anything else.
1 Arthasastra, Book I, Chapter III, 9, p. 9
2 BhS, 11, 9,417-18.
Ib, 2, 1, 90-96; 1, 2, 25; 2, 1, 90; 11, 12, 436.
4 Arthasastra, Book 1, Ch. III-9; Panini (VI. 1. 154) puts the Parivrajaka into the third stage, while he refers to the Bhiksu belonging to the fourth stage; Vide India as known to Panini by Dr. V.S. Agrawala, Ch. III Secion-2, p. 81.
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