Tyājya — What Must Be Abandoned
Tyājya (Sanskrit: tyaj = to abandon; 'that which is to be abandoned') refers to the qualities, attitudes, beliefs, attachments, and actions that obstruct the soul's progress toward liberation and must be consciously relinquished.
The Tyājya-Upādeya Framework: Sri Vaishnava instruction carefully delineates what must be given up (tyājya) and what must be embraced (upādeya). True spiritual life requires both the abandonment of the harmful and the cultivation of the beneficial.
What Is Tyājya:
- Ahaṅkāra — false ego, belief in independent selfhood
- Mamakāra — possessiveness, 'this is mine'
- Anya devatā worship as primary goal — treating other deities as supreme
- Anya śeṣatva — service directed to anyone other than Bhagavān as the ultimate loyalty
- Dehatmabhimāna — identifying the body as the self
- Viparīta jñānam — fundamental misidentification
- Niṣiddha karma — actions forbidden by śāstra
Tyājya in Prapatti: In prātikūlya varjanam (one of the five aṅgas of prapatti), the prapanna commits to abandon all that is contrary to surrender. This is the tyājya of prapatti — the deliberate turning away from what obstructs Bhagavān's grace.
[From alternate entry: tyajyam]
Tyājyam — That Which Must Be Abandoned
Tyājyam names the category of things that must be wholly abandoned — not moderated, not reduced, but given up entirely — as fundamentally incompatible with the Śrī Vaiṣṇava prapanna's way of life. It goes beyond nisedha (prohibition) to a deeper spirit of renunciation.
The classic tyājyam list in the rahasyam texts includes: ahankāra (the false sense of 'I am the doer'), mamakāra (the false sense of 'this is mine'), svātantryam (the delusion of being self-sufficient), anyasheṣatva (serving or belonging to entities other than Bhagavān), and karma-phalendriya-bhoga (enjoying sensory pleasures as ends in themselves). These are the inner attitudes that must be entirely relinquished for prapatti to be genuine.
The Āzhvārs demonstrate tyājyam powerfully. Nammāzhvār sings of casting away everything worldly to have Bhagavān alone. Tiruppāṇāzhvār, from the Caṇḍāla community, exemplifies the casting away of all social hierarchy as a distraction from Bhagavān's beauty. The tyājyam is not just external objects but internal attachments — the grasping quality of the mind that says 'I must have this.'
In prapatti theory, the fifth aṅga (component) of prapatti is kārpanya — profound helplessness and self-surrender. This kārpanya involves genuinely abandoning the pretense of self-sufficiency. Until tyājyam is achieved internally — until 'I can manage this myself' is genuinely released — prapatti remains incomplete.
Practically, the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition does not demand withdrawal from all worldly activity. Rather, the tyājyam is the inner clutching, the ownership claim over one's body, actions, and results. Work is not tyājyam; working for oneself alone is. Relationships are not tyājyam; possessive clinging to them is. Wealth is not tyājyam; treating it as one's ultimate security is.