study and acquiring professional skills. The second is the householder
stage (grhastya), where the focus is on the goals of wealth, pleasure
(through marriage and family satisfaction), and duty (dharma) through
participation in community. The third is the stage of the forest-dweller
(vanaprasthya), conceived as a semiretired stage devoted to contemplation
and religious inquiry. For those so inclined, there is a fourth
stage, renunciation (sannyasa), devoted to the pursuit of liberation
(moksha) through a life of celibacy and voluntary poverty. Here again
one may make the argument that the realization of this life scheme
presupposes Rawls’s requirements. Opportunity in education and
training is necessary for the student stage, wealth for the householder
stage, and retirement income for the stages of the forest-dweller and
renunciant. Basic health care is needed for the attainment of the goals
of all four stages. The scheme of four life-stages also assumes that the
fulfillment of life’s material needs neither excludes nor is incompatible
with the pursuit of liberation (moksha). In the order of the stages,
it may even be said to precede it.