[Advaita-l] Knowledge, renunciation and varNASrama rules - Is sanyasa ashrama sweekaram a must

[Varadaraja Sharma]

Radhe Krishna

Shriman Vidyasankar, Radhe Krishna

I am very much thankful to you for clearing my misunderstanding of Gita Bhashya being a novice. As I wrote, I have many doubts being a learner.  The issue is so big having so many sub issues and were discussed together.  To clear my doubts, I wish to discuss every single issue separately one by one.

To begin with, I feel like being clear about one issue.  That anybody irrespective of one’s varna or gender can get brahmagnyana in his / her present birth  itself.  That has been very clearly enunciated by your interpretations of bhashya.

Now I list out my doubts.

A)	Is sanyasa Ashrama a must for a brahmagnyani :-

(1) From your interpretations of Adya AcharyaL’s Bhashya, I understand it is a must. I have read some of your observations on this and could not get complete clarity as to, by this, you mean ritual initiation of a person to Sanyasa Ashrama or being in a state of sanyasa irrespective of the fact of whether or not one has been ritually initiated into Sanyasa Ashrama.

I am giving below some of your observations in this regard :-

a)	Sankara bhagavatpAda separates out the situation very nicely and says that so long as the conditions for renunciation are met, anyone can renounce.
b)	In the case of vidvat saMnyAsa, the renunciation of everything by the brahmajnAnI, no rules really apply.

The instance of Jada Bharatha and Shri Ramana Maharishi comes to my mind.  For both of them upanayana samskara was performed and latter they became gnyanis. They were not initiated to sanyasa ashrama.

Very specifically about Jada Bharatha.

1.	putra-snehanubadha-manah asamavartanat samskaran yathopadesham vidadhana upanithasya  (Shrimad Bhagavatha 5.9.4)– Because of puthravathsalyam, the father of jada bharatha performed upanayana samskara for his son. As the upakhyana, progresses there is no reference as to sanyasa sweekara.
2.	karmani cha sa karyamanah parechchaya karothi vishtitho vetanatho va yacnaya yadruchchaya va  upasaditam alpam bahumrushtam kadannam va abhyavaharati param na indriya prithinimitham. (Shrimad Bhagavatha 5.9.9) yacnaya va yadruchchaya va – by begging or if a yathi is in ajagara vruthi (hope it is one of the modes allowed for sanyasi) if the anna comes on its own accord.  But how does one explain vetanatho va – by wages – certainly not a sanyasa vruthi!

So by sanysa ashrama, what is insisted is ritually initiated sanyasa ashrama sweekaram or the fact of being in a state of sanyasa by a person bestowed with sadana sampath.

Radhe Krishna