Page 41 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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“On The Sthiyaprajna-Darshana 1”
Dr. Sharmila Virkar

I

“The vitality of a classic consists in its power to produce from time to time men who
confirm and correct from their own experience truths enunciated in it. The commentators

speak to us from experience and express in a new form, a form relevant to their age and
responsive to its needs, the ancient wisdom of the scripture,” says, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. 2

We find in the last couple of centuries stalwarts like Dr. Radhakrishnan, Lokamanya Tilak,
Mahatma Gandhi, Gurudev Ranade, Sri Aurobindo, and much before Bankimchandra Chatterjee have

unveiled the ancient wisdom of Bhagavadgita for us. What I want to stress, here, is that in spite of
these contemporary commentators whose attempts are significant in their own ways, I was fascinated

when I read for the first time Sthitaprajna-Darshana by Acharya Vinoba Bhave and the fascination
gets enhanced with each reading. Tilak, in his Gita-Rahasya is primarily interested in establishing the

need to work even after attaining Siddhavastha. For Vinoba, there is no such commitment to a particular
idea like Nishkama-Karmayoga. In free India, upholding Samya-Yoga, he goes on freely making

various points. Consequently, I intend to highlight, in this paper, those points which are made only by
Vinoba in his Sthitaprajna-Darshana.

Rather than the “Talks on Gita” and “Gitaee”, it is his “Sthitaprajna-Darshana” which is loaded
with philosophy-philosophy understood in any sense-Love of wisdom or conceptual clarification,

intellectual defense consisting of critical, analytic argumentation or exclusive concern for human existence.
3
It may be observed that Sthitaprajna-darshana depicts the ideal of Sthitaprajna in such a way that
any philosopher, conceiving Philosophy in any one of these senses, will be deeply satisfied with the way
the concept of Sthitaprajna is presented by Vinoba.

At the outset, the word ‘Sthitaprajna’ is defined and elaborated in the “Sthitaprajna-
Darshana”. Steadfast mind is his distinguishing and essential feature. Secondly,Vijnana and Tattvajnana

of Sanyama is explained and lastly,after describing the state of Sthitaprajna,its outcome is brought
out in Sthitaprajna-Darshana.As a result, the one who knows nothing theoretically of the same may

have enhanced understanding and the one who is familiar may have through understanding of
Sthitaprajna. Let me now substantiate these claims.

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