The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hindusim vol 2

Shrauta Sutras
dead. For further information see
Pandurang Vaman Kane, A History of
Dharmasastra, 1968; and Raj Bali
Pandey, Hindu Samskaras, 1969.
Shraddhanand, Swami
(b. Lala Munshi Ram, d. 1926) Key figure
in the development of the Arya Samaj, a
modern Hindu reformist movement.
Shraddanand was born in Punjab and
got a law degree from the Government
College in Lahore, but was most influential
through his support for the Arya
Samaj’s educational institutions. His
greatest work was establishing the
Gurukul Kangri near the sacred city of
Haridwar in 1901. The Gurukul
(“teacher’s household”) was a boarding
school where Arya Samaj children could
be raised with “progressive” Arya values,
far from the corrupting influences of traditional
mainstream Hindu society. This
model was based on the Vedas, the earliest
Hindu religious texts, which the
Arya Samaj took as the sole religious
authority, and in which a student would
live as a member of his teacher’s family.
Educationally, the curriculum stressed
the arts and sciences necessary for a
“modern” education, but also traditional
Sanskrit learning, particularly of the
Vedas. Shraddhanand became a Sanyasi
in 1917 but continued to support political
causes, particularly Indian social and
political leader Mohandas Gandhi’s
1919 call for non-cooperation with the
British government. His fervor and
strength of character made him an
unpopular figure, and he was assassinated
by a Muslim in 1926.
Shramana
(from the Sanskrit verb shram, “to
strive”) General term denoting religious
adepts from the middle of the first millennium
before the common era whose
beliefs stressed renunciation, ascetic
practices, and the search for intuitive
insights. Shramana religious practice
was individualist, experiential, freeform,
and independent of society. All of
these qualities put them in religious
competition with the brahmin priests,
whose practice stressed mastery of
sacred texts and performing enormously
complex rituals; the need for sponsors
for these rituals made brahmin religion
“establishment” religion, serving its
patron classes. Indian grammarians use
the pair shramana and brahmin to illustrate
typically bitter opponents, along
with examples such as mongoose and
cobra, and their difference seems to be
between a religious model stressing
individual charisma (shramana), and
one stressing highly trained technical
expertise (brahmin). Part of the shramana
tradition remained outside the
Hindu fold by virtue of resolutely rejecting
the authority of the Vedas; the Jains,
Buddhists, Ajivikas, and other religious
groups developed as a result of this
rejection of the Vedas. Part of the shramana
tradition was absorbed into traditional
Hinduism in the dharma literature,
which found a place for renunciant
asceticism in the form of the Sanyasi,
the last of the four traditional stages
of life (ashramas). For further information
on the shramanas and the
development of this tradition, see
Padmanabh S. Jaini, “Sramanas: Their
Conflict with Brahmanical Society,” in
Joseph Elder (ed.), Chapters in Indian
Civilization, 1970.
Shrauta Sutras
(“aphorisms on Vedic rituals”) A set of
brief sayings (4th c. B.C.E.) explaining the
ritual instructions for performing the
public sacrifices prescribed in the
Vedas, the earliest and most authoritative
Hindu religious texts. Such sacrificial
instructions had been prescribed in
the Brahmana literature—itself considered
part of the Veda—but with the passage
of time the Brahmanas had become
too complex and difficult to understand.
The Shrauta Sutras were essentially
manuals for the priests presiding over
the Vedic sacrifices, composed to ensure
that the sacrifices would be performed
correctly. Aside from instructions for
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