[Advaita-l] Importance of sannyAsa for study of VedAnta

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- bhaskar.yr at in.abb.com wrote:

> 
> praNAms Sri Sanjay Srivastava prabhuji
> Hare Krishna
> 
> SS prabhuji:
> 
> Some AchAryas actually hold this view. I remember visiting
> devAnanda
> swami of uttar kashi in my college days and he maintained that
> study
> of vedAnta by gruhasthas would give them pApa.
> 
> bhaskar :
> 
> Do our smruti texts / dharma shAstra-s say like this prabhuji??  or
> is it
> swamiji's individual opinion?? 

HH Chandrasekhara Bharati of Sringeri quotes the shAstras as
"saMnyasya shravaNam kuryAt.h" - "Study the Vedanta after taking
Sannyasa". Not sure where this verse appears though. The dialog at
the link below explains why HH also taught that study of Vedanta is
only for sannyAsins:

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2003-June/012616.html

> Why I am asking this is, as you
> know, being
> a dvija, it is mandatory to study sva-shAkha vEda...In vEda-s, we
> have
> saMhita, brAhmaNa & AraNyaka portions, one has to study all these
> three
> parts to complete the sva-shAkhA vEdAdhyayana..upanishads/vEdAnta
> normally
> comes in the AraNyaka portion..if the vEdAntAdhyayana is prohibited
> for
> gruhasthAshrami-s, we would have left out that portion of
> vEda-s...

When I asked the question regarding the teaching of upanishhads in
Veda PAThashAlas, I got the reply that in R^igveda and atharvaveda
adhyayana, upanishhads are not taught. Only students in sAma and
yajur veda are taught their upanishhads. Anyway, that still doesn't
explain why these two shAkhAs teach upanishhads to BrahmachAris.

[..]

> SS prabhuji:
> 
> Late paramAchArya of Kanchi and previous shringeri AchArya held
> that
> the  study of vedanta by gruhasthas would at best give them some
> punya
> but not brahma-jnAna. Apparently, there are others who do not take
> such charitable view.
> 
> bhaskar :
> 
> shankara says in sUtra bhAshya that brahma jnAni can be there in
> both
> saNyAsa as well as gAruhastyAshrama. He may be a emperor like
> Janaka, he
> may be a gruhastha-maharshi like yAgnAvalkya, he may be a avadhUta
> like
> shuka/ashtAvakra/dakshiNAmurthy, he may be a sanyAsi like our
> bhagavadpAda,
> he may be a boy like nachikEta, he may be a shUdra like
> vidhura/dharmavyAdha, he may be a avatAra puruSha like rAma/krishna
> or he
> may be a *anAshrami* like ramaNa maharshi..so I dont think brahma
> jnAna
> specifically meant for saNyAsi-s.
> 

Does Shankara anywhere explicitly say that gR^ihasthas in general
(not special isolated cases, which are considered exceptions to the
general rule) can also study VedAnta?

> SS prabhuji:
> 
> And therefore later AchAryas such as Swami Vidyaranya had to
> clarify
> that even a brahma-jnAni cannot be a jivanmukta unless he takes up
> sannyAsa.
> 
> bhaskar :
> 
> kindly pardon me I am not able to get the difference between brahma
> jnAni &
> jIvan mukta..prabhuji do you mean to say here brahma jnAni is
> inferior to
> jIvan mukta??  Further, I donot know why should brahma jnAni bother
> about
> taking up formal saNyAsa when he realized that he is akatru,
> abhoktru at
> any point of time ??
> 

I gave the links in a previous email discussing this:

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2003-August/012833.html

http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2003-August/012791.html

> praNAms onceagain
> Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
> bhaskar
> 

Regards,

Kartik

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