Page 26 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

21oha “krkCnh esa vkpk;Z fouksck Hkkos dh izklafxdrk

Vinoba like Gandhi and Marx believes in social reality, in the being of the others and therefore
he tries to find out the relationship between the Brahman and the Jagat. According to him, the world

is Sphurti. Vinoba discusses the theoretical part of the essence of the world in his book ‘Upanishadon
ka Abhyasa. ‘Behind the contradictions of this world, there is the essence of life. “He is the purest

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essence” of the things, of the world. Those who take the cosmos as it appears to our senses, lose the
core of Spiritual Reality. The physicists and other scientists, who are keen students of the world of

senses, do not seem to realize the ultimate meaning. They talk of the Ultimate Reality as the sum-total
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of knowledge. Even if we have knowledge of all sciences and combine them, yet we cannot comprehend
the unfractionalized (akhanda) garment (vastra) of this cosmos through a second-hand knowledge of
a coarse cloth placed together and made somehow into one.

In his preface to his compilation ‘ Gurabodh’ (selections from Shankaracarya’s Verses made
in 1957) Vinoba formulated a couplet which explains his philosophical position, vis-a-vis, Brahman

and the Jagat. He did it with a slight modification in the traditional verse Brahma Satyam jaganmithya,
jivo brahmaiva naparah.Vinoba says,

Veda Vedanta gitanam Vinuna sara uddhrtah
Brahma satyam jagat sphurtih jivanam satya shodhanam.

(Vinu has extracted this essence of the Veda, the Vedanta and the Bhagvad Gita that Brahman
is real, the world is a vibrant manifestation of Brahman and that life consists in the pursuit of Truth). He

adds in the same preface by way of justification for his alteration: “I do not think I have hereby made
any great departure from the general teaching of the Vedanta philosophy. On the contrary, my statement

brings about a happy reconciliation between vedanta and the age of Science. 19
The vedantins tried to explain the same relation of one and many with their different theories of

causation, Œamkara called it Vivaratavâda while Ramanuja called it Parinamavada. Vinoba refutes
both and synthesizes both. The rope-snake example given by Œamkara, he refutes by saying, ¯If the

rope does not have the nature of a snake, we may try thousands of times but we will not see the snake
in it. If Brahman does not share the nature of the world or vice versa Brahman can never be seen as
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the world. So the world is not Vivarta of Brahman. It is Parinama of Brahman. Thus he changes
Samkara‘s example of Rajju Sarpavat Vivartato Rajju Sarpavat Parinama. He also refutes

Ramanuja‘s example of Kancana Kamkanavat Parinama. According to Vinoba, only gold has real
value while the bangle has no value at all for a Goldsmith. In the same manner the world is only an

‘illusion’ from one point of view. Between the two, namely, Brahman and the world, only Brahman is
real. Thus, it will be seen that why Vinoba names it Kanchana Kankanavat Vivartah. 21

So according to Vinoba, the world is neither mithya as Shankara thinks nor real as Ramanuja
believes. So if one runs away from the world calling it maya and the other runs after it considering it to

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