With such consistency did the Brahmans develop their system; such was the ideal which they put before the Indians of the holy life, leading to union with Brahman. When the Dvija had set up his house, and married and begot a son, when he had fulfilled his duties as Grihastha (house master), when he was old and saw "the posterity of his posterity," he must go into the forest--so the law of the priests bade,--in order to become a Vanaprastha and Sannyasin. Indeed the importance which the system ascribed to the spiritual as opposed to the sensual, to super-sensual holiness as opposed to the unholy world of sense, even led them to declare marriage and the family as unnecessary, disturbing, and unholy; and with strict consistency they gave command to repair to the forest at once, and forswear the world from the first. Even in the law-book of the priests this was permitted; but as an exception. The Brahmacharin could, when he had finished his long period of instruction, go at once into the forest as an eremite and penitent.[219] The large majority neither could nor did observe such commands, but, so far as we can see, the number of penitents was not inconsiderable soon after 600 B.C.--and the ordinary people recognised the peculiar merit of those who went into the forest. They looked on the penitents with respect. And even to this day it is observed, that in the later years of life, when the time approaches for receiving the reward or punishment of their deeds, the Hindoos devote themselves with redoubled eagerness to their religious duties. The Ramayana describes the abodes in the forest and the life of the penitents. There are some who live constantly in the open air; others who dwell on the tops of the mountains; others who sleep on the places of sacrifice, or on the naked earth, or who do not sleep at all; some only eat during one month in the year; others eat rice with the husks; others feed only on uncooked nutriment, leaves, or water; others do not eat at all, but live on the air and the beams of the sun and the moon. Some constantly repeat the name of the same deity; others read the Vedas without ceasing; the greater part wear clothes of bark; others wear wet garments perpetually; other stand up to the neck in water; others have fire on every side and the sun overhead; others stand perpetually on one leg; others on the tips of their great toes; others on their heads; others hang by their heels on the branches of trees.[220] When this passage of the Ramayana was composed or altered, the practices of the ascetics had already gone beyond the rules prescribed in the book of the law.