[Advaita-l] Pitrupaksha questions

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2011, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:

> I would caution against equating the GYAnin with saMnyAsin in the 
> excepts that Jaldhar posted from the Sringeri Acharya. The question 
> asked was not about a person who has formally taken saMnyAsa and the 
> answer was given accordingly. The Sringeri Acharya would have been the 
> first to acknowledge that a saMnyAsin is not necessarily a jnAnin and 
> that all jnAnin-s did not necessarily take to ritual saMnyAsa.
>

Mind you my pa~nchA~Nga does note that dvAdashI (12th) day of pitR^ipakSha 
is for shrAddha of sannyasis.  (There is a fixed day because as you 
mention the exact day of death/renunciation might not be known.) Although 
there may not be a one-to-one correspondence between GYAna and sannyAsa I 
think in general it is assumed that a sannyAsi is (or ought to be) a 
GYAni.  In any case the point was that contrary to Shrikantajis 
utilitarian argument Swamiji was arguing it had to be done out of duty 
whether it is "needed" or not.

To answer the original question, dharmashAstra considers sannyAsa to be 
legally death.  So the shrAddha if it is to be performed would be from the 
date of assumption of that Ashrama.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>