A classical scheme of four life stages, each with its own appropriate duties, meant to organize the pursuit of the four aims of life across a full lifespan.
Ashrama names a classical scheme dividing an ideal human life into four stages, each carrying its own specific duties, and this archive presents it as the temporal companion to the four aims of life already covered under purushartha: where that scheme names what is worth pursuing, this one organizes when each pursuit is appropriate.
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The classical scheme of four legitimate aims of human life — duty, prosperity, pleasure, and liberation — held in tension.
A cluster of ideas around duty, order, and right conduct that is understood differently across Indian traditions.
Liberation or release, framed as the ultimate aim in several Indian traditions — with each defining what it means differently.