as a matter of faith, as being foremost among the human
species in this universal race for final beatitude? The life marked out
for them by that stern theory of class duties which they themselves had
worked out, and which, no doubt, must have been practised in early times
at least in some degree, was by no means one of ease and amenity. It
was, on the contrary, singularly calculated to promote that complete
mortification of the instincts of animal nature which they considered as
indispensable to the final deliverance from _samsara_, the revolution
of bodily and personal existence.

The pious Brahman, longing to attain the _summum bonum_ on the
dissolution of his frail body, was enjoined to pass through a succession
of four orders or stages of life, viz. those of _brahmacharin_, or
religious student; _grihastha_ (or _grihamedhin_), or householder;
_vanavasin_ (or _vanaprastha_), or anchorite; and _sannyasin_ (or
_bhikshu_), or religious mendicant. Theoretically this course of life
was open and even recommended to every twice-born man, his distinctive
class-occupations being in that case restricted to the second station,
or that of married life. Practically, however, those belonging to the
Kshatriya and Vaisya castes were, no doubt, contented, with few
exceptions, to go through a term of studentship in order to obtain a
certain amount of religious instruction before entering into the married
state, and plying their professional duties. In the case of the
sacerdotal class, the practice probably was all but universal in early
times; but gradually a more and more limited proportion even of this
caste seem to have carried their religious zeal to the length of
self-mortification involved in the two final stages. On the youth having
been invested with the badge of his caste, he was to reside for some
time in the house of some religious teacher, well read in the Veda, to
be instructed in the knowledge of the scriptures and the scientific or
theoretic treatises attached to them, in the social duties of his caste,
and in the complicated system of purificatory and sacrificial rites.
According to the number of Vedas he intended to study, the duration of
this period of instruction was to be, probably in the case of
Brahmanical students chiefly, of from twelve to forty-eight years;
during which time the virtues of modesty, duty, temperance and
self-control were to be firmly implanted in the youth's mind by his
unremitting observance