A section from the journey
The Wandering Seekers
The forest sages were not the only ones asking the great questions. All across the river plains, in the same age, men and women left their homes to seek release. They were called shramanas, the strivers. Some walked within the Vedic world. Some walked outside it, and away from it. Together they made an age of deep questioning.
Picture a dusty road on the great plain, in the cool of early morning. A figure walks along it, barefoot, with a bowl and almost nothing else. He has left his home, his fields, his name. He is going nowhere in particular, and everywhere. He is looking for one thing only: a way out of sorrow.
We have spent this whole age in the forest, sitting near the sages, hearing their quiet answers about the Self. But here is something we must now see. Those sages were not alone. All around them, in the same years, on the same roads, a great many others were asking the very same questions.
These wanderers had a name. They were called shramanas, which means the strivers, the ones who toil. The name tells you their whole way. They did not seek freedom through the fire-offering and the priest, as the older Vedic path taught. They sought it by their own effort, by hard discipline, by walking and fasting and sitting still. The work was theirs to do, with their own hands and hearts.
What drove so many to the road at once? We will see the answer more fully in the next telling. The land itself was changing. New towns were rising, with iron and trade and coined money. Old certainties were loosening. And into that open space came a flood of new questions, and new seekers bold enough to ask them.
Now here is the part a careful teacher must get right. These seekers did not all walk the same way. Two broad streams ran side by side.
One stream stayed within the Vedic world. These were the renouncers we have already met, the sages who gave up home and wealth to seek the Self. To leave the world in this way, late in life, became a road within the tradition itself. The word for it is , the great letting-go.
The other stream ran outside the Vedic world, and sometimes against it. These seekers did not accept the Vedas as the final word, nor the priest and the offering as the road to freedom. From this stream came whole new paths. Two of them are very great, and still living today: the path of the Buddha, and the path of the Jains. We will meet both with care, soon.
So let us hold the honest picture in mind. This was one shared age of deep questioning, spread across one land. But it gave many different answers, and some of them disagree with each other sharply. We will not pretend they are all one thing. We will let each path speak in its own voice, and we will honour each as its own.
There are seasons when many people, all at once, begin to ask the same large questions about how to live. Have you ever felt such a stirring, in yourself or among those around you, where the old answers no longer seemed enough?
We have sat with the forest sages and heard their answers about the Self. But they were not alone. All across the great river plains, in the same centuries, a wide movement was stirring. Restless people left house and field to wander, to beg their bread, and to seek an end to the round of birth and death. They were called shramanas, the strivers. The word means one who toils, for they sought freedom by their own hard effort rather than by the fire and the offering. Some of these seekers stayed within the Vedic fold. Others stepped wholly outside it, and even set themselves against it. From this churn would come great teachers, among them the Buddha and Mahavira. The honest picture is one shared age of questioning, with many different and independent answers. We will honour each on its own terms.
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