[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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