Vratyas
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Vrātyas (perhaps derived from vrāta—‘ group’)
A band of roaming and aggressive warriors who appear in the Veda (most notably in the Atharva Veda One bound by a vow.
Vratyas appeared as groups of people (bound perhaps by common vows) in NE India, perhaps the first of the Aryan invaders.
Vratya, wandering ascetic, member of either an ethnic group or a sect, located principally in the Magadha (Bihar) region of ancient India.
The vratyas lived outside the fold of the dominant Vedic society and practiced their own forms of austerity and esoteric rites.
The Rigveda uses the term vratya fewer than a dozen times, usually in reference to a breakaway group or an inimical horde of men living in temporary settlements.
The Atharvaveda (see Veda) speaks of the “mystical fellowship” of the vratyas.
The Brahmanas, which associate the god Rudra with the vratyas, depict them as ascetics roaming about in an intoxicated state but also describe a purification ritual called a vratya-stoma (“vratya chant”) and speak of the vratyas as physicians and as guardians of truth.
Some scholars conjecture that the vratyas might have been a source of non-Vedic beliefs and practices introduced into the Vedic religion.