{"id":3161,"date":"2019-02-09T17:45:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T21:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/?p=3161"},"modified":"2021-12-19T01:12:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T06:12:49","slug":"can-women-take-sannyasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/can-women-take-sannyasa\/","title":{"rendered":"Can women take sannyasa?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sannyasi-dsf.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3163\" src=\"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sannyasi-dsf-300x175.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sannyasi-dsf-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sannyasi-dsf-364x212.jpg 364w, https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sannyasi-dsf.jpg 593w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Sannyasa means renunciation to material life. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">This can be done with or without the formal acceptance of tridanda sannyasa order. Anyone can just take the blessings of his Guru and leave home to go live \u201cin the vana\u201d, as Srimad-Bhagavatam says, meaning Vrindavana, as Srila Prabhupada explained.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Therefore both men and women can by de facto be renunciates. In India we see many advanced Vaisnavi wearing white and successfully living a life in perfect Krishna Consciousness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">If by sannyasa is meant saffron clothes, danda etcetera, we can&#8217;t find anywhere of formal sannyasa given to women. While we have bonafide women Gurus, it\u2019s nowhere to be found bonafide sannyasinis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">We often find titles given to lady Vaisnavas like Swamini or Gosvamini, but these do not refer to a formal sannyasa initiation but rather to their spiritual qualifications of being able to control the senses. As Srila Rupa Gosvami says:<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">vaco vegam manasah krodha-vegam<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">jihva-vegam udaropastha-vegam<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">A Gosvami is one who controls speech, mind, anger, tongue, belly and genitals.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">If a Vaisnavi is able to do that, then she is rightly called a Gosvamini.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">Our authorities are Guru, Sadhu and Sastra. Our personal opinions count as long as are backed up by bonafide authorities. I just read an article by a known devotee saying \u201cI see no reason why women should be barred from accepting sannyasa.\u201d I do see reasons and they are simple: no bonafide sources have authorized it.<br \/>\nSrila Prabhupada even says:<br \/>\n&#8220;A woman is not supposed to take sannyasa. So-called spiritual societies concocted in modern times give sannyasa even to women, although there is no sanction in the Vedic literature for a woman\u2019s accepting sannyasa.&#8221;\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span>(Srimad Bhagavatam\u201d, Third Canto, Chapter 24 \u2013 Text 40)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">&#8211; Manonatha Dasa (ACBSP)<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif;\">9 Feb 2019<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sannyasa means renunciation to material life. This can be done with or without the formal acceptance of tridanda sannyasa order. Anyone can just take the blessings of his Guru and leave home to go live \u201cin &hellip; <a class=\"kt-excerpt-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/can-women-take-sannyasa\/\" aria-label=\"Can women take sannyasa?\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 08:38:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isvara.org\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}