---
type: Concept
bundle: bhakti-marga
bundle_version: "0.4.0"
id: sharanagati
title: "Śaraṇāgati / Prapatti — Loving Self-Surrender"
iast: "śaraṇāgati"
devanagari: "शरणागति"
description: "Active, total entrustment of oneself to the Lord's protection. Not submission, not resignation, not passivity, not fatalism."
darshana:
  - Viśiṣṭādvaita
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
school_scope: "Central to Śrīvaiṣṇava (Viśiṣṭādvaita) theology as the accessible means (upāya) alongside or in place of bhakti-yoga; recognized broadly across Vaiṣṇavism."
text_source: "Bhagavad Gītā 18.66; Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā 37 (the six aṅgas); Śrī Bhāṣya (Rāmānuja)"
tags:
  - sharanagati
  - prapatti
  - surrender
  - srivaishnava
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "submission"
    why: "submission implies yielding to a superior force, often grudgingly or under compulsion; śaraṇāgati is a free, loving act of entrustment to a protector one trusts completely, closer to a child leaping into a parent's arms than to a defeated party submitting"
    instead: "Render śaraṇāgati as loving self-surrender or taking refuge; never as submission to power."
  - term: "resignation"
    why: "resignation is giving up in defeat or despair; śaraṇāgati is the opposite, an act of confidence and relief, undertaken because the refuge is trusted to be loving and capable, not because effort has failed"
  - term: "passivity"
    why: "the surrendered devotee is not inert; the first of the six limbs is the active resolve to do what is favorable to the Lord; surrender reorders action toward the Beloved, it does not abolish action"
  - term: "fatalism"
    why: "fatalism is belief in impersonal, indifferent fate; śaraṇāgati entrusts oneself to a personal, loving Lord who is invoked precisely as a protector (goptṛ), the antithesis of blind fate"
  - term: "blind obedience"
    why: "obedience is conformity to commands; śaraṇāgati is the gift of the whole self to one trusted to care for it, a relationship of love and refuge, not a posture of command-following"
related:
  - /concepts/bhakti.md
  - /concepts/prema.md
  - /concepts/shraddha.md
  - /concepts/guru.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Śaraṇāgati / Prapatti — शरणागति

**Not:** submission, resignation, passivity, fatalism, blind obedience

Śaraṇāgati (also *prapatti*) is the act of taking complete refuge in the Lord: entrusting oneself, one's burdens, and one's liberation entirely to God's loving protection. In Śrīvaiṣṇava theology it is the supreme and most accessible means (upāya) — available to all, regardless of capacity or qualification, where the rigorous discipline of bhakti-yoga may not be.

## Etymology

*Śaraṇa* (refuge, shelter, protection) + *āgati* (coming, approach): "coming to refuge," approaching the shelter. *Prapatti* is from *pra* + √*pad* (to fall toward, to resort to): "casting oneself toward." Both words name a *movement* — an approach, a casting-toward — not a collapse. The grammar is active: the devotee comes, resorts, casts. This is decisive against "passivity" and "resignation": the words describe someone moving *toward* a refuge, not someone lying down in defeat.

## The Six Limbs (Ṣaḍ-aṅga)

The Śrīvaiṣṇava tradition (drawing on the Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā) specifies six constituents of true surrender, and the first is an *action*:

1. **Ānukūlyasya saṅkalpa** — the resolve to do what is favorable to the Lord
2. **Prātikūlyasya varjana** — the renouncing of what is unfavorable
3. **Rakṣiṣyatīti viśvāsa** — firm faith that the Lord will protect
4. **Goptṛtva-varaṇa** — choosing the Lord as one's protector
5. **Ātma-nikṣepa** — the laying down of the self (the surrender proper)
6. **Kārpaṇya** — humility, the acknowledgment of one's own helplessness

Note that surrender contains both a resolve to act favorably (1) and an admission of helplessness (6). It is not the cancellation of effort but its complete reorientation: the devotee still strives, but strives *for the Beloved* while resting the outcome and one's own salvation in the Beloved's hands.

## The Gītā's Charama-śloka

The locus classicus is Gītā 18.66: "Abandoning all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone; I shall liberate you from all sins, do not grieve" (*sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṃ śaraṇaṃ vraja*). The verse is read by the Śrīvaiṣṇava ācāryas as the charter of prapatti: the final instruction is not "try harder" but "entrust everything to Me." The closing words — *mā śucaḥ*, "do not grieve" — mark surrender as the end of anxiety, not its deepening; an act of relief and confidence, the very opposite of resignation.

## Cross-References
- [Bhakti](bhakti.md) — surrender is the ninth limb (ātma-nivedana) brought to completion; bhakti's inner posture
- [Prema](prema.md) — total surrender is the ground in which selfless love matures
- [Śraddhā](shraddha.md) — surrender rests on the trust that the refuge will hold
- [Guru](guru.md) — in the Śrīvaiṣṇava path the guru (ācārya) is the one through whom surrender is enacted

## Audience Metaphor

Picture a small child at the edge of a pool, and a trusted parent in the water with arms open saying "jump, I have you." When the child jumps, that is not submission, resignation, or passivity. It is the most active, confident thing the child could do — a leap made *because* the arms are trusted, ending in relief and delight, not defeat. The child does not stop existing or stop moving; the child moves with total freedom precisely because the catching is assured. Śaraṇāgati is that leap into the Lord's arms: an act of trust and love that ends grief, not an act of giving up.

## Citations

1. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 18.66 — the charama-śloka: "abandon all dharmas, take refuge in Me alone... do not grieve"
2. [Pāñcarātra Āgama](/references/pancaratra.md) (Ahirbudhnya Saṃhitā 37) — the six limbs (ṣaḍ-aṅga) of prapatti
3. [Śrī Bhāṣya](/references/sri-bhashya.md) — Rāmānuja on the soul as śeṣa to the Lord, the doctrinal ground of self-surrender
