This volume brings together papers on Indian ascetical institutions and ideologies published by Patrick Olivelle over a span of about thirty years.

Abbreviations; Preface; 1. Introduction to Renunciation in the Hindu Traditions; 2. The Ascetic and the Domestic in Brahmanical Religiosity; 3. Village vs. Wilderness: Ascetic Ideals and the Hindu World; 4. A Definition of World Renunciation; 5. From Feast to Fast: Food and the Indian Ascetic; 6. The Beast and the Ascetic: The Wild in the Indian Religious Imagination; 7. Deconstruction of the Body in Indian Asceticism; 8. Contributions to the Semantic History of ‘samnyasa’; 9. The Semantic History of ‘asrama’; 10. Renunciation in the ‘Samnyasa Upanisads’; 11. Odes of Renunciation; 12. Ritual Suicide and the Rite of Renunciation; 13. The Renouncer’s Staff: ‘trivistabdha’, ‘tridanda’, and ‘ekadanda’; 14. ‘Pancamasramavidhi’: Rite for Becoming a Naked Ascetic; 15. Anandatirtha’s ‘Samnyasapaddhati’: A Handbook for Madhvaite Ascetics; 16. Renouncer and Renunciation in the ‘Dharmasastras’; 17. King and Ascetic: State Control of Asceticism in the ‘Arthasastra’; Bibliography; Index