History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v3.c46.65

v3.c46.65

When the question is asked whether śūdras or women could resort to sannyāsa there is likely to be some confusion. The word ‘sannyāsa’ conveys two ideas: abandonment of all actions (kāmya karma) that spring from the desire to secure some object or other and secondly, following a certain mode of life (āśrama) the outward signs of which are carrying a staff and the like and the entrance into which is preceded by the utterance of the *praiṣa*. The Jīvan-muktiviveka²¹⁶⁸ (p. 3) states that mokṣa (amṛtatva) depends upon *tyāga* (abandonment) as stated in the Kaivalyopaniṣad (2) ‘not by actions, nor by progeny nor by wealth, but by *tyāga* some attained mokṣa’ (release). For such abandonment even women and śūdras are eligible, the best example of a woman giving up everything being that of Maitreyī, the wife of Yājñavalkya, who plainly told the sage (Bṛ. Up. IV. 5. 3–4), ‘what have I to do with that which will not make me immortal (will not release me from *saṁsāra*)?’ The Bhagavad-gītā (18. 2) also declares that sannyāsa means the giving up of actions springing from desires (to secure certain objects). The Jīvan-muktiviveka further states that by resorting to the āśrama of sannyāsa the mother and the wife of a sannyāsin are supposed not to be born again as women (but they may be born as men). So women and śūdras may abandon all actions, though they could not adopt the peculiar ascetic mode of life with its outward symbols. According to Śrīkara’s bhāṣya on Vedāntasūtra I. 3. 34 the order of sannyāsa, the peculiar rules of which are recommended by Vedic texts, is only for the three varṇas, while mere nyāsa (abandonment of worldly pleasures and desires) can be resorted to by women, śūdras and mixed castes.²¹⁶⁹