Page 97 - Acharya Vinoba Bhave in 21st Century ISBN

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

extracted even from an unclean place’—is a rule of Vedic rituals. If a sinner’s money—voluntarily paid
by him—is employed for a good purpose, it will clean the sin also.

It seems hard to reconcile such views with someone who has long harbored a desire to rid the
world of money. For me December 25th still seems like a genuine inflection point in Vinoba’s thinking.

And its origins still seem a mystery—perhaps there is more to the Christmas “coincidence” than I
realize.

II. The experiment in practice and theory

We now turn to the experiment itself, which officially began on January 1, 1950 and formally
ended in April 1953 when Vinoba closed down the ashram so the workers could join the bhoodan

movement. However, there are several intervening dates when one gets the sense that the experiment
began to lose momentum:

1951 September 12: Vinoba leaves for Delhi, on what would become his bhoodan yatra. From that

point on he had to encourage and guide the experiment primarily through his writing in Sevak and
Sarvodaya.

1952 September 11: On his birthday, Vinoba praises the ashram experiment in kânchan-mukti as “the

most revolutionary experiment of our times” but still announces that he would not be returning to the
ashram any time soon. He had decided the protection of the ashram was a form of attachment and he

was sacrificing it until the land problem of the country was solved.

1952 October 23: In Patna Vinoba announces his sampattidân (gift of wealth) program. Although this
is not necessarily incompatible with kânchan-mukti, it certainly confused the issue and showed the

unlimited aspirations now attached to dân as the engine of social revolution.
By 1953 most young Sarvodaya workers were clamoring to join the bhoodan campaign.

After the Chandil Sammelan in March 1953 asked all constructive institutions and workers to rally to
the bhoodan cause, the Paunar ashram was closed in April.

Rishi-kheti

Today, we know rishi-kheti primarily through a few anecdotes. The most well-known involves
a Persian wheel turned not by bullocks but by a group of people of all ages, who recite the Gitai while

walking in circles—thereby combining work, community and prayer. This story typically includes the
visit by Jayaprakash Narayan, who finds inspiration when he joins the circling group of worker-devotees. 8

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