Who were Rishis, Munis and Acharya in Hindus
It is great to be proud of your culture and heritage but it is greater to know your culture and heritage. The Hindus, in last some decades are feeling great related to their culture and heritage but they are not feeling greater by knowing their culture and heritage.
The
most important topic which generally common Hindus do not know but talk lot
about is, is the topic of our ‘rishis and munis.’ I asked them who were rishis and munis and
most of them have the same answer they were great. Now Hindus feeling great
about their culture and heritage and those rishis and munis were great because
they made such culture and heritage and therefore everyone in Hindus is great.
Let me write on this issue. We, Hindus are confused about rishis, munis, Acharya, Sanyasis, saints, Mahatma and nomadic.
In
ancient India, when the Aryans were establishing their civilization, which at
present generally known as Hindus, at that time there were academicians divided
into different categories.
Rishis or sages were those who had
developed metaphysics, epistemology and code of conduct of the society and run
their schools (Ashrams) for students. It
is said that different rishis wrote Vedas- the way of living- as rishis were
philosophers and run their own school of thoughts. As sage Kapila is the one
who propounded oldest school of thought Samkhya. Rishi Kapila also established
schools to teach his philosophy of Samkhya. The school advanced theory of
duality and start teaching this theory to students through Asharms. In the
Ancient History of Majumdar, there are instances when there is a debate between
the school of Samkhya and Nyaya. Similarly Rishi Aksapada Gautama who
propounded school of Nyaya and there are rishis who started schools of
Vaisheshka, Yoga and others. Rishis are founders of thoughts and science and
they teach these streams to students. These rishis live in families and have
their children and therefore in Hindus the Gotaras are mostly on the name of
rishis like rishis Vashisht. Rishi Bhardwaj etc.
Now then who were Munis, munis were not saints or ascetic but munis were those who set up social and moral orders in the society. Muni Manu, Muni Narada are the best examples who laid down the social orders in Hindu societies. Mostly Munis discuss and write code of conduct for the society like of Manu Sahita or Narada Sahita. They too have families but they mostly travel from one state to another. They were basically encyclopedia of social order in different parts of the sub continent of India and they forward the best to those who required. Lake Muni Manu in his Manu Sahinta wrote about the social order of family and occupation.
Acharya were the teachers, mostly teachers of the
state like Acharya Drona who taught weapons in the epic of Mahabharata. And like
of Acharya Kautaliya or Chanakya who taught public administration and wrote
Arth Shastra. Or like Shukra Acharya who taught politics to Asuras. There were
many Acharyas in a state teaching philosophies, public administration, politics
and other subjects as desired by the state. Interestingly, Shanker who
propounded Vedanta and wrote Vedanta Sutra is known as Acharya because he had
not advanced the new philosophy of Vedanta but he regenerated and refurbished
the Vedanta philosophy advanced by Badriyan.
Now Sanyasis were those who left the worldly life and live in isolation or in jungles to attain the moksha for self. They have no contact with the society and denounce the world. There are now different groups in Sanyasis including Nagas, Aghori, Namdeva and so on.
But the concept of saint later after the influence of Vishesh Devetvada of Ramanuja where god becomes important topic and difference was made between god and the soul. The concept of saint started mostly in South of India and saint like Vallabha, Jaidev, Chaitanya, Ramanand and later Kabir, Meera Bai, Ramdas, Tukaram and others emerged. The concept of saint is either borrowed from Sufism or originated in Hindu land is the different topic to research.