ABSTRACT
This chapter details how the ascetic tradition evolved within Brahmanism, as a conflict between the householder centred village Brahmins and individualised city Brahmins, by consolidating Patrick Olivelle’s translations and scholarly readings of the Upanisads. The non-ritual state of the ascetic becomes the very antithesis of the ritual state of the householder. This chapter discusses how attempts were made to embody the householder Brahmin within the renouncer Brahmin, and the renouncer Brahmin in the householder Brahmin. The Brahmin thinkers problematise the issue as ‘how a Brahmin can be a Brahmin in the non-ritual state?’ and this became the central question in Brahmanism. Sankara attempted to address this central question by defining the ‘ideal’ Brahmin as one who is not only without any external emblems that signify a Brahmin but is also not bound by varnasramadharma. If so, where do we locate the householder Brahmin within the Brahmanical worldview? This issue was resolved when the householder Brahmins (ritual state) became signifiers, and the sanyasi Brahmin (non-ritual state) became signifieds. That is, a Brahmin in the non-ritual state, a sanyasi, becomes the ‘ideal’ Brahmin. The signified, the ‘ideal’ Brahmin, in the non-ritual state, possessed un-touch sense and became a dead being.
