Who is a householder?

Who is a householder?
In traditional Indian society, a householder (Sanskrit gṛhastin) is typically a settled adult male with a family. In the Pali canon, various Pali words have been translated into the English word "householder", including agārika, gahapati, gahattha and gihin.[5] Vocations most often associated with householders in the Pali canon are those of guild foreman, banker and merchant (Pali, seṭṭhi) but other vocations are mentioned such as farmer and carpenter.[6]Gombrich (2002, pp. 56–7) states:

Who were these people in terms of class or profession? In the Canon, most of them evidently own land, but they usually have labourers to do the physical work. Sometimes they are also in business. In fact, they illustrate how it is in the first instance wealth derived from agriculture which provides business capital. The average gahapati who gave material support to the Buddha and his Sangha thus seems to have been something like a gentleman farmer, perhaps with a town house. On the other hand, inscriptions in the western Deccan, where Buddhism flourished in the early centuries CE, use the term gahapati to refer to urban merchants. We must distinguish between reference and meaning: the meaning of gahapati is simple and unvarying, but the reference shifts with the social context.

Other people in the canon who are sometimes identified as "householders" in contemporary translations are simply those individuals who dwelt in a home or who had not renounced "home life" (Pali, agārasmā) for "homelessness" (Pali, anagāriya).

Householder ethics.
While there is no formal "householder discipline" in the vinaya or "code of ethics", the Sigalovada Sutta (DN 31)[7] has been referred to as "the Vinaya of the householder" (gihi-vinaya).[8] This sutta includes:

an enumeration of the Five Precepts
an analysis of good-hearted (Pali: su-hada) friends
a description of respectful actions for one's parents, teachers, spouse, friends, workers and religious guides.
Similarly, in the "Dhammika Sutta" (Sn 2.14),[9] the Buddha articulates the "layman's rule of conduct" (Pali, gahatthavatta),[10] as follows:

the Five Precepts
the Eight Precepts for Uposatha days
support of one's parents
engaging in fair business.
The Mahanama sūtra has been called the "locus classicus on the definition of upāsaka."[11] This sutra is preserved in five versions (two in Pali, three in Chinese) representing two different recensions, one in the Samyuktagama/Samyuttanikaya, the other in the Anguttaranikaya and in the Samyuktagama and further developed in the Abhidharmaskandha, one of the canonical books of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma.[12] In this sutra the Buddha defines an upāsaka in terms of faith (śraddhā), morality (śīla), liberality (tyāga), and wisdom (prajñā), as follows:[13]

"One produces a deep thought of faith toward the Tathagata and is established in faith. He never lacks faith or is evil towards śramaṇas, brāhmaṇas, or deva, or māra, or brahmā. This is called the faith of an upāsaka."
"Not to kill, not to steal, not to seduce, not to lie, and not to drink liquor, etc. This is called the morality of an upāsaka".
"It is a rule (dharma) for an upāsaka that he should abandon stinginess. As for all living beings, without exception, stinginess, and envy are destroyed by him. Therefore, his mind should be devoid of stinginess and envy, and he should produce thoughts of liberality and personally donate, tirelessly. This is called 'possessed of liberality.'"
"An upāsaka knows suffering according to reality, knows the collection of suffering according to reality, knows the extinction of suffering according to reality, and knows the path to the extinction of suffering according to reality. He understands with certainty. This is called 'possessed of wisdom.'"

Some early schools, particularly the Sautrāntika, allowed for aparipūrṇa-upāsaka (partial lay vow holders), who took anywhere from one to four of the śīla observances.[14