Dear Sri Srinivasachary, The question boils down to "Can gAyatrI upAsanA yield moksha?" I was deliberately avoiding this issue, as it would mutate into other unrelated discussions like bhakti/prapatti, sahEtuka krpA/nirhEtuka krpA etc. etc. I don't think we can afford to say, gAyatrI upAsanA cannot yield mOksha because it directly contradicts chAndOgya brAhmaNam and we have a (probably unnecessary :-)) baggage of affiliation with vaidika dharmam. If we do so, advaitins and mImAmsakas (if they still exist) will have a field day and rip our sampradAya apart charging us with the crime of going against vEdas. Moreover, gAyatrI vidyA is one among many vidyAs mentioned in the upanishads along with others like bhUmA vidyA, dahara vidyA, madhu vidyA(*) etc. There is then a tricky issue of our TK sampradAyam - whether any of these can constitute an upAyam for mOksham, as a jIva is utterly dependent on the lord and any conscious effort on jIva's part is against his nature. The madhu vidyA is of particular interest to me as it is directly traceable to the Rg & Atharva samhitas, hinted in the context of pravargya ritual in shathapatha brAhmaNa apart from being described in madhubrAhmaNa of brhadAraNyaka upanishad. (This in turn confirms my observation - the division of vedas into samhita/brAhmaNam/AraNyakam/upanishad is not entirely true and vedas themselves do not know of karmakAndam/gnyAnakAndam division). The only valid division (at least according to me) is matras & brAhmaNas. This should be a separate thread. Good that you brought up our shrutaprakAshar sudarshana sUri. He has written commentary on Apastamba grhya sUtra called tatparyadarshanam and refutes views of an earlier commentator haradatta. This haradatta has written a commentary on the entire Apastamba kalpa sUtra, including the dharma sUtra. I don't know whether sudarshana sUri commented on dharma sUtra. He is supposed to have written sandhyAvandana bhAshyam, commentary on Apastamba mantra pATham and chAndOgya upanishad and subAla upanishad. Probably, his sandhyAvandana bhAshyam might throw more light on how our early AchAryas viewed nitya karmas. I did not have the bhAgyam of reading it. Regards, Kasturi Rangan
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