Page 58 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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Vinoba and Christianity

Thomas Chirappurath

Gandhi and Other Major influences on Vinoba
The saint-activist Vinoba Bhave is the product of a few influences. The noble traditions of the

land, especially the Saints of Maharashtra, played a pivotal role in his spiritual and philosophical formation.
The seeker in the young Vinayak Narhari Bhave, sought and found a perennial source of satisfaction in

the person of Mahatma Gandhi whom he met in 1916, at the age of 21. The meeting produced the
Vinoba whom Gandhiji later presented to India and to the world at large.

Though Vinoba held independent views and said that he was a man of his own ideas, yet he
always acknowledged his indebtedness to others. Among the greatest influences on him, Vinoba takes

out three names: Shankaracharya, Sant Dnyaneshwar and Mahatma Gandhi.
Regarding the influence of Shankaracharya, he says:

I have been nourished on the teachings of Shankaracharya. I owe a deep debt of
gratitude to him. He has set an example of desirelessness and non-attachment. He

looked upon the temporal world as an illusion and yet he had such compassion in his
heart that he trekked throughout the length and breadth of the country three times

during the short span of a life of 32 years. … 1
He further said, “I am indebted to Shri Shankaracharya for the intellectual grounding and the
2
background of the Vedanta he provided me with.” On Sant Jnaneshwar, the second of the great
influences on him, Vinoba says: “I am a humble devotee of Saint Jnaneshwar. I have been nourished on

his commentary on the Gita. … I cannot express in words how much I am beholden to the great Saint
Jnaneshwar. All I have and all I am is due to him. 3

Vinoba met Gandhi in his teen age, and then onward moved in his company. It was Gandhi
who contributed the maximum in the formation of Vinoba. He considered the company of Gandhiji

as a “good luck”. On the influence Gandhiji wielded on him, Vinoba says:
I am a child of his. I was a mere boy when I approached him in 1916. Since then I

have lived under his sole sway and none other’s. I have labored a great deal to
assimilate the ideas he has given us, the wealth of thought he has bequeathed to us

from the beginning to the end. I can claim to have practiced thoroughly the ideas he
placed before us. 4

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