[Advaita-l] shankara in bruhadAraNyaka on 'saNyAsa'

Bhaskar YR bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com
Thu Oct 8 03:14:49 CDT 2009


praNAms
Hare Krishna

First,  in geeta bhAshya (2-10),   shankara says : janakAdayaH 
tattvavidOpi....karmasaNyAse prAptepi karmaNA sahaiva saMsiddhiM AstithAH 
na karma saMnyAsaM krutavantaH...Here shankara clearly hints that even 
kshatriya-s like janaka etc. are eligible to take sarvakarma saNyAsa but 
continued with their previous karma etc.  And  in mundaka shruti ( 1.2.12) 
bhAshya on 'brAhmaNo nirvedamAyAt', shankara explicitly says that ONLY 
brahmaNa-s have the special eligibility (adhikAra)  to take saNyAsa : 
brAhmaNasyaiva visheshatOdhikAraH sarvatyAgena brahma vidAyAM iti 
brAhmaNagrahaNaM, here also one can infer that though brAhmaNa-s have 
special (vishesha)  adhikAra, other varNA-s (kshatriya & vysya)  also can 
take saNyAsa.  But in bruhadAraNyaka bhAshya, at two places shankara 
explicitly says ONLY brahmaNa-s have the adhikAra to take saNyAsa and 
kshatriya & vysya-s donot have adhikAra to take pArivrAjya saNyAsa.  Here 
are those two instances :

(a)  brahmaNAnAM eva adhikArO vyutthAne atO brahMaNa grahaNaM  (br.up. 
bhAshya 3-5-1).

(b)  na hi kshatriya vyshyayOH pArivrAjya pratipattirasti (concluding 
remarks at br.up. bhAshya 4-5-15)

I heard that sureshwara in his vArtika says all the three varNa-s have 
adhikAra to take saNyAsa. 

Kindly clarify how traditional vyAkhyAnakAra-s / AchArya-s would reconcile 
this seemingly contradictory statements??

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar 

PS :  My paramaguruji Sri SSS too has not discussed this issue in 
detail..He, in his Kannada commentary on bruhadAraNyaka, just points out 
at vArtika reference & leaves it to scholars to look at at.  Hence I am 
making this request. 



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