Vinayak Narahari Bhave, known as Vinoba Bhave, was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights.
34 Facts About Vinoba Bhave
2.
Vinoba Bhave is considered as National Teacher of India and the spiritual successor of Mahatma Gandhi.
3.
Vinayak Narahari Bhave was born on 11 September 1895 in a small village called Gagoji in Kolaba in the Konkan region of what is Maharashtra.
4.
Vinoba Bhave's father was a trained weaver with a modern rationalist outlook and worked in Baroda.
5.
Vinayaka was brought up by his grandfather, Shamburao Vinoba Bhave and was greatly influenced by his mother Rukmini Devi, a religious woman from Karnataka.
6.
In 1916, after reading a newspaper piece by Mahatma Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave threw his school and college certificates into a fire on his way to Bombay to appear for the intermediate examination.
7.
Vinoba Bhave wrote a letter to Gandhi and after an exchange of letters, Gandhi advised Bhave to come for a personal meeting at Kochrab Ashram in Ahmedabad.
8.
Vinoba Bhave met Gandhi on 7 June 1916 and subsequently abandoned his studies.
9.
Vinoba Bhave participated with a keen interest in the activities at Gandhi's ashram, like teaching, studying, spinning and improving the lives of the community.
10.
Vinoba Bhave went to Wardha on 8 April 1921 to take charge of the Ashram as desired by Gandhi.
11.
Vinoba Bhave was arrested several times during the 1920s and 1930s and served a five-year jail sentence in the 1940s for leading non-violent resistance to British rule.
12.
The jails for Vinoba Bhave had become the places of reading and writing.
13.
Vinoba Bhave learnt four South Indian languages and created the script of Lok Nagari at Vellore jail.
14.
Vinoba Bhave participated in the nationwide civil disobedience periodically conducted against the British and was imprisoned with other nationalists.
15.
Vinoba Bhave gained national prominence when Gandhi chose him as the first participant in a new nonviolent campaign in 1940.
16.
Vinoba Bhave was associated with Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian independence movement.
17.
Vinoba Bhave stayed for some time at Gandhi's Sabarmati ashram in a cottage that was named after him, 'Vinoba Kutir'.
18.
Vinoba Bhave gave talks on the Bhagavad Gita in Marathi to his fellow ashramites.
19.
Vinoba Bhave felt that the source of these talks was something from above and he believed that its influence would endure even if his other works were forgotten.
20.
Vinoba Bhave observed the life of the average Indian living in a village and tried to find solutions for the problems he faced with a firm spiritual foundation.
21.
Vinoba Bhave walked all across India asking people with land to consider him one of their sons and so gave him one-sixth of their land which he then distributed to the landless poor.
22.
Vinoba Bhave was a scholar, thinker, and writer who produced numerous books.
23.
Vinoba Bhave was a translator who made Sanskrit texts accessible to the common man.
24.
Vinoba Bhave was an orator and linguist with an excellent command of several languages.
25.
Vinoba Bhave called "Kannada" script the "Queen of World Scripts" Vinoba Bhave wrote brief introductions to, and criticisms of, several religious and philosophical works like the Bhagavad Gita, works of Adi Shankaracharya, the Bible and the Quran.
26.
Vinoba Bhave was deeply influenced by the Gita and attempted to imbibe its teachings into his life, often stating that "The Gita is my life's breath".
27.
Vinoba Bhave University, located in Hazaribagh district in the state of Jharkhand, is named after him.
28.
On 18 April 1951, Vinoba Bhave started his land donation movement at Pochampally of Nalgonda district Telangana, the Bhoodan Movement.
29.
Vinoba Bhave took donated land from landowner Indians and gave it away to the poor and landless, for them to cultivate.
30.
Vinoba Bhave got more than 1000 villages by way of donations.
31.
Vinoba Bhave spent the later part of his life at his Brahma Vidya Mandir ashram in Paunar in Wardha district of Maharashtra.
32.
Vinoba Bhave controversially backed the Indian Emergency imposed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, calling it Anushasana Parva.
33.
In 1958 Vinoba Bhave was the first recipient of the international Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.
34.
Vinoba Bhave was awarded the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 1983.