prapatti dvayam

[Guest guest]

Dear Bhagavata,

Question on interpretation of caramaslokam of gIta and mumukshupadi .

 

The question was:

gItArthasangaraha of alavandar says that bhaktyEka gocara: nArAyana: : -

nArAyana

is reached only by bhakti. Whereas mumukshuppadi talks about saraNAgati as the

way to reach Sriman nArAyana. Is there a conflict of opinion between the two.

caramasloka a part of gIta prescribes saraNAgati as the ultimate way. Then how

can alavandar say that bhakti is the way to reach nArAyana.

 

There is no conflict between the two. They talk about two different types of

saraNAgati. saraNAgati otherwise called as prapatti is of two types. 1. anga

prapatti and 2. svatantra prapatti.

 

1. anga prapatti - is ancillary to bhakti. Here the bhakti (sadhaka) treats

bhakti as the way (upAyam ). To practice bhakti, one has to clean all his sins.

To clean the sins prayascitta is to be performed which may take a long time

considering the quantum of our sins. So he chooses to perform saraNAgati(in

lieu of all the prayascittams) which cleans him of all the sins thus giving

birth to bhakti. So this prapatti is an anga for bhakti which is the main

upAyam.

saraNAgati ___clear sins___practice bhakti____ reach Sriman nArAyana.gIta

preaches

this prapatti only and not the following.

 

2. svatantra prapatti : here the prapanna (saraNAgata) construes that prapatti

(in turn bhagavan's tiruvadi) would directly give him moksham. there is no

role for bhakti as an upAyam here. Since it directly gives moksham without

expecting

anything else, it is known as svatantra prapatti. This is the matter of

saraNAgati

gadya and rahasya granthams like mumukshupadi. perform prapatti ( in other words

SMS)____ on receipt of SMS bhagavans krupa gets invoked____HE grants moksham.

 

 

These two concepts are explained by AMPerumal nayanar in acarya hrdayam as

"sAnga

bhakti prapatti dvai vidyaikal". Since bhakti is the upAyam in gIta (since it

preaches a sadhaka like Arjuna), the caramaslokam to be treated as prescribing

anga prapatti only. This was the guidance given by alavandar too.

 

However we are not in the same boat as arjuna. He stood in pravritti marga.

We as prapannas must be in nivritti marga. So anga prapatti is against our

inherent

nature of seshatvam. Ramanuja who is the most eligible to perform bhakti, did

not. He too performed prapatti only. This is an evidence that whether you have

the shakti or not, one must not choose bhakti as upAyam. Ramanuja sampradayam

is svatantra prapatti only. Ramanuja in his gIta bhashyam comments on anga

prapatti only. This is in line with gIta to Arjuna. But in saraNAgati gadya,

he decisively preaches svatantra prapatti in words and action.

 

Srimate Ramanujaya Namaha