Page 74 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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

he has done during the various periods, one wonders at the depth of imagination that is his. Maulana
Masoodi, the erudite leader of Kashmir aptly remarked once that even if a committee of experts were

formed to do this sort of work on the Quran that Vinoba has done, it would take them years.

The arrangement of the Book
Vinoba has selected 1065 verses under 90 chapters, 30 sections and 9 parts. These constitute

one sixth of the whole Quran, which contains 6666 verses in all. It is noteworthy how he marked the
verses and arranged them subject-wise under different heads. Having done this, he thought of a suitable

title for the book now known as the ‘Essence of Quran.’ In a letter to Ahad Fatmi, the editor of the
‘Bhoodan Tehriq’ writes, ‘’This book will be helpful in presenting before the world the essential

spiritual teachings of the Quran’’
The sequence of chapters in this book corresponds to the first five verses of the second chapter

of the Quran. For easy reference Vinoba has in his own way, compiled a Sanskrit verse which reach
reads:

“In the beginning, O God, I adore Thee alone, Whom, with all devotion, the
devotees serve, Who showeth the path of spirituality and morality to mankind and

who enableth the seers and Apostles to explore His mysteries.’’ 3

Understanding the Quran
The discussions that took place at times with his associates during the days Vinoba was making

the selections, could have served as useful explanations of the ‘Essence’ had notes been kept by
someone. But how could that be possible when persons competent to do it were not allowed to stay

longer with him and were allotted some work or the other by him. It goes against the spirit of
nonaccumulation ,he says to let workers gather around him where they would be better employed to

do useful work of serving humanity in different fields of work elsewhere. His main objective in bringing
out this book was the union of hearts.

In his speeches he has quoted verses from the Quran and given his interpretations. He has
translated two chapters of the Quran in Marathi. In Bhoodan-Ganga, one comes across the exhaustive

exposition of his many references from the Quran .In his book entitled ‘Rama-nama: a study’ he has
given a detailed study of the interpretation of the concept of ‘the Shirk’ which is looked down in the

Quran. One gets a clear view of his broad vision and synthetic approach from one of his lectures at
Indore when the theme of his talk was: ‘Do not bow to the sun, butto the Maker of the sun. ’In several

meetings he has referred to-Ilmulyakeen and Ainulyakeen (True knowledge and True Revelation) and
reference to the verse meaning ‘your work is to spread the message and mine is to take account ’has

74