[Advaita-l] Faith vs. Sraddha

[Bhadraiah Mallampalli]

Dear Amuthan

 

This is a tough one and prettry delicate one to deal with. 

 

>'SraddhAvAn labhate j~nAnam...'. The bhAshya goes like >this: 'SraddhAvAn SraddhAluH labhate j~nAnam. ** >SradhAlutve.api bhavati kaScit mandaprashAnaH, ata >Aha tatparaH gurUpAsadanAdau abhiyuktaH >j~nAnalabdhyupAye SraddhAvAn.**

 

I do not think Sankar Bhagavatpada is saying Shraddha is not sufficient, otherwise that would contradict message of gItacharya. Why would bhagavatpada do that? Shraddha is the first requirement and there is some further process like searching for a guru, acquisition of jnana etc, but gItacharya can not be wrong either. How do you resolve this? Acharya's words tend to miscommunicate if we take a different meaning. 

 

Acharya is only explaining the latter process, parallel to what happens later in Nachiketa story. Nachiketa had the shraddha but he still does not have the "stuff", as he was still mandaprashAnaH when it comes to jnana. After he goes to Yama's kingdom, he worships Yama, learns jnana re: various rites and finally gets his brahmajnana. Ch.U.VI says 'One who has a teacher knows..for him the delay is for that long only ... until he realizes the self...'. Sankara commented on Ch.U.VI extensively. What gitacharya is saying is similar to Ch.U.VI, in the sense 'One who has the shraddha knows...'. 

 

Regards

Bhadraiah

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