---
type: Concept
bundle: bhakti-marga
bundle_version: "0.4.0"
id: shraddha
title: "Śraddhā — Trust-Faith"
iast: "śraddhā"
devanagari: "श्रद्धा"
description: "Trust-faith born of conviction and confirmed in practice. Not blind faith, not mere belief, not credulity."
darshana:
  - Bhakti (Vaiṣṇava Vedānta)
  - Advaita Vedānta
school_scope: "Pan-traditional; the precondition of every mārga. In bhakti it is the first rung of sādhana; in Vedānta it is the disposition that lets the teaching be received."
text_source: "Bhagavad Gītā 17.3; Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu 1.4.15-16; Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.23"
tags:
  - shraddha
  - faith
  - trust
  - sadhana
  - tier-1
not:
  - term: "blind faith"
    why: "śraddhā is not belief held against or without evidence; it is a provisional trust that makes practice possible and is then confirmed by the practitioner's own experience; the tradition expects śraddhā to mature into direct knowing, the opposite of staying blind"
    instead: "Render śraddhā as trust-faith or grounded confidence; never as blind faith."
  - term: "belief"
    why: "'belief' is propositional assent to a claim; śraddhā is a disposition of the whole person, a heart-placed trust that orients action, closer to the trust one extends to a teacher or physician than to agreement with a proposition"
  - term: "credulity"
    why: "credulity is readiness to believe anything; śraddhā is discriminating, directed at a worthy object (the teaching, the Lord, the guru) and inseparable from viveka (discernment); the tradition warns against misplaced faith"
  - term: "creed"
    why: "a creed is a fixed doctrinal formula defining membership; śraddhā is an inner readiness that precedes and exceeds any formula, present wherever the heart turns trustingly toward the Real"
related:
  - /concepts/bhakti.md
  - /concepts/prema.md
  - /concepts/guru.md
  - /concepts/sharanagati.md
timestamp: "2026-06-25"
okf_version: "0.2"
license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

# Śraddhā — श्रद्धा

**Not:** blind faith, belief, credulity, creed

Śraddhā is the trusting confidence that makes a spiritual path walkable before its fruit has been tasted. It is not the conclusion of the path (that is direct knowledge or prema) but its precondition: the willingness to commit to a practice on the strength of a teaching one has not yet verified, in the reasonable expectation that practice will verify it.

## Etymology

A compound of *śrat* (an old Vedic word for truth, or for the heart) + the root √*dhā* (to place, to hold, to set down). Śraddhā is literally *placing one's truth* or *setting down the heart* upon something. The image is not of assenting to a claim but of resting one's weight on a support. This is why śraddhā is better rendered "trust" than "faith" in the modern sense: it is what you extend to a bridge when you step onto it, confirmed only by crossing.

## What It Actually Means

The Gītā (17.3) states that a person is constituted by their śraddhā: "as is one's śraddhā, so is one" (*śraddhāmayo 'yaṃ puruṣaḥ*). Faith here is not an opinion one holds but the orientation that holds *one*. In the devotional progression mapped by Rūpa Gosvāmī, śraddhā is the first stage of sādhana-bhakti — the initial trust that draws a person to the company of devotees (sādhu-saṅga), which leads to practice (bhajana-kriyā), and so onward toward bhāva and prema.

Śraddhā is provisional by design. It is the trust that lets the experiment begin; the tradition fully expects it to be replaced by *anubhava* (direct experience). A faith that refused ever to become knowledge would be a failure of śraddhā, not its fulfillment.

## Why the Substitutes Fail

"Blind faith" inverts the concept: śraddhā is faith *with its eyes open toward a result*, sustained only until experience confirms or corrects it. "Belief" shrinks it to mental assent, losing the bodily, committing, weight-bearing quality. "Credulity" drops the discrimination that always accompanies genuine śraddhā, which is directed at a tested teaching and a worthy guru, not at anything whatsoever.

## Cross-References
- [Bhakti](bhakti.md) — śraddhā is the doorway to the devotional path; bhakti takes root where śraddhā is placed
- [Prema](prema.md) — the love into which trusting devotion matures
- [Guru](guru.md) — śraddhā in the teacher is what makes transmission possible
- [Śaraṇāgati](sharanagati.md) — surrender presupposes the trust that the refuge will hold

## Audience Metaphor

Śraddhā is the trust you place in a flight you have booked but not yet taken. You do not have proof you will arrive; you have grounds (the airline's record, the pilot's training) and you act on them by boarding. That is not blind faith — you would not board a plane with no engines. And it is not yet knowledge — you only *know* you can fly there once you land. Śraddhā is exactly that grounded, provisional, weight-bearing trust that gets you on the plane, fully expecting the journey to turn faith into firsthand knowing.

## Citations

1. [Bhagavad Gītā](/references/bhagavad-gita.md) 17.3 — "as is one's śraddhā, so is one"; faith as the constitution of the person
2. [Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu](/references/bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu.md) 1.4.15-16 — śraddhā as the first stage of sādhana-bhakti, leading through sādhu-saṅga to bhajana
3. [Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad](/references/shvetashvatara-upanishad.md) 6.23 — parā bhakti joined to trust in the Lord and the guru
