But some men took the extraordinary step of leaving their families, turning their back on society, and retiring to the forest. Instead of making the household the focus of their lives, they were deliberately homeless. They lived rough, owned no property, and begged for their food. Some let their hair grow wild and matted, some wore yellow robes, and others went naked. These “renouncers” (samnyasins) put themselves beyond the pale, but they became central to India’s spiritual quest. Henceforth the renouncer, not the householder, would become the agent of religious change.103 It was he, not the
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