The 4 ‘ashramas’ of Hinduism and what they can teach us about aging gracefully

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Nandini Bhattacharya, Texas A&M University

(THE CONVERSATION) Aging is often feared, resisted, and in the cruelest of cases, mocked and even punished.

Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and author of the book “Elderhood,” puts it well when she says older people who seek health care are often made to feel superfluous even if the intention is benign. In the workplace in general, being older seems to suggest being useless.

An irrational but socially reinforced sense of having somehow failed haunts many older people. Reporter Ali Pattillo writes in National Geographic: “No one wants to be old, especially as aging stereotypes have become more negative … fueling what some call a worldwide crisis of ageism.”

I am a scholar of South Asia studies whose work has focused on the transformation of Indian society by British colonization, leading to the loss of precolonial values, knowledge and customs. I’m aware of Hinduism’s teachings about the different stages of life – the four ashramas – knowledge that has been lost today.

This model of human life could offer guidance on how to age more gracefully.

The four ashramas model

The four ashramas concept has existed since 500 BCE and is detailed in Hindu classical ancient texts. It is integrated with the idea of Purushartha, or the four proper aims of life in Hindu philosophy, namely, dharma, or morality; artha, or wealth; kama, or love; and moksha – liberation.

In the ancient literature, brahmacharya, the first stage, or ashrama, is said to begin at age 7, with a young boy being assigned a guru, or teacher, studying hard and observing ascetic discipline and self-control, including total celibacy until the next ashrama.

In the next ashrama, known as grihastha, the boy, now a young man, is said to transition from academic learning to embracing worldly affairs. Grihastha is a pivotal period in an individual’s life entailing providing for a family with dignity, building wealth ethically and having children.

At about age 50 came vanaprastha, when one was expected to initiate the process of renouncing the world. It began with detaching from family life and a gradual movement toward an existence devoid of worldly burdens and obligations. It was the equivalent of semiretirement and retirement today.

Last came sanyasa, or total renunciation – a time to detach entirely from the world, desires and anxieties, at about 75. The sanyasi left home, retired into the forest, became a teacher and modeled the attainment of ultimate spiritual liberation.

Every age is not a breathless race

Given people’s increased life spans now, the timeline indicated above for each stage should be interpreted fluidly and variably. Broadly though, in Hinduism, an approximation of such stages and ways of living at different ages is a sensible timeline for living a good life. Everyone, irrespective of race, gender, nationality and age, can learn from the ashramas. Every age and every stage of life need not be lived as a breathless race.

The four ashramas ideal proposes living and playing hard according to one’s natural capabilities at any given point in life. And when the race has been run well, one can and may slow down, disengage and start a different journey. In his collection of poems called “Eternity’s Woods,” Paul Zweig, facing his own untimely death of cancer, imagined life after death as release from tormenting mortal coils, much as Hindu philosophers did in conceptualizing life as stages of natural progression toward release from the world’s strife and suffering, and transcendence.

This ideal of four stages in Hindu philosophy teaches us that one need not live in the perpetual mindset of staving off a change in abilities, but live the life of every stage to the fullest, actively as well as contemplatively, riding the ebb and flow of the human condition.

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