Pandurang Shastri Athavale

Pandurang Shastri Athavale (1920-2003) created the Svadhyaya movement in India. Svadhyaya is the incorporation of the message of the Bhagavad Gita in one's life. Started in the 1950s in Bombay, the five million-member Svadhyaya movement has become a formidable force in Gujarat and Maharashtra. Athavale has established a string of educational institutions, pioneered many ingenious wealth redistribution measures and instituted numerous social welfare schemes. An estimated 80,000 villages have so far come under the influence of Svadhyaya.

Athavale knows that individual transformation inevitably leads to social change. Bhakti (devotion), he says, can be turned into a social force. "Since God is with us and within us, he is a partner in all our transactions. Naturally, he has his share..." God's part of our wealth, Athavale suggests, can be redistributed among the poor and needy.

In farming communities, this is routed through Yogeshvar Krishi (Divine Farming), a scheme in which each family contributes to the purchase of land, and subsequently devotes one day a month for its cultivation. Seen as God's plot, the income thus generated is consecrated in the local temple (called Amritalayam) and later disbursed to those in need as prasad or divine blessings.

Fishing communities buy a common boat called Matsya Gandha (Floating Temple) instead of land. A larger version of the Yogeshwar Krishi is the Vriksh Mandir, where inhabitants of 20 adjoining villages devote one day a month to cultivating a fruit orchard of 10 acres or more. The idea is not just to provide for those in need, but also to forge friendly ties among the villages, thereby creating larger circles of universal brotherhood.

Athavale has also set up a range of educational institutions. In the Bal Sanskar Kendras, children are instilled with a love of Indian culture and values through mythological tales, and in the Tatvajnana Vidyapeeth at Thane students are taught Indian and western philosophy, comparative religion, and Vedic rites and rituals. Athavale has taught Sanskrit to illiterate villagers and trained many people of all castes in the Vedic rites of priesthood.

Athavale was prepared for this mission by his father, Vaijnath Laxman Athavale Shastri, a Sanskrit scholar who ran the Srimad Bhagavad Gita Pathshala at Madhav Bagh in Mumbai, India. Encouraged by his son's devotion to the Gita, Vaijnath started a special Sanskrit school for him where he learnt the Vedas, the Upanishads, the shastras or ancient texts, logic and philosophy till the age of 25.

Athavale received the Magasaysay award in 1996 and the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1997.