By: Pankaj Jain
pj2017@columbia.edu
November 24, 2003

Swadhyaya is one of the most prominent living phenomena of Indian culture in 21st century. We have read and heard a lot about the Indian culture, well, here is Indian culture in action. A role model for the entire world based on indigenous Indic concepts. Swadhyaya Parivar is a global family of volunteers who follow Swadhyaya, a holistic Vedic philosophy based on Gnaan (knowledge), Karma (Action) and Bhakti (devotion). Swadhyaya, in the true spirit of Indic Traditions, is neither a sect nor a cult. It neither tries to define Hinduism nor defend it. It matches with the broad based definition of Dharma rather than "Hinduism" as defined by orientalists and post-colonialists. Its admirers include Muslims and Christians also.

Neither the founder of Swadhyaya nor the current leader is Sanyaasi. All Swadhyayi (practitioners of Swadhyaya) are householders. Number of Swadhyayis now ranges more than 20 million people around the world. Swadhyaya never asks or appeals for any form of donation. There is never any “fund-raising” done for any Swadhyaya events in any part of the world. Swadhyaya has never built a single temple anywhere in the world. It has never asked for any outside support from government or from wealthy people. It has no concept of membership, hierarchy or formal office. It has never done any advertisement or propaganda and so it remains a low key (best kept secret according to one of my friends!). Even though it is a spiritual and cultural Parivar, the followers are not given any Mantra to meditate, nor is there any concept of maala or Taaweez. Rather the focus is on the intellectual aspects of Dharma.

It was founded by Shri Pandurang Shastri Athavale who himself is an authority on Sanskrit, Vedas, Upanishads, Gita and other Indian scriptures. He is also a scholar of western knowledge including Marxism, Hegel, Khalil Jibran, Freud, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity etc. He was honored by doctorates by two Indian Universities. According to him, "Swadhyayis are merely Bhaktas (devotees)" and "Bhakti (devotion) is social force." Indeed this novel concept of devotion married with intellectual and activistic zeal has created a massive force by launching a Panchrangi Kranti, a quiet revolution on five fronts, political, social, economical, cultural and psychological.

What Swadhyaya is not and what it is:

• It strives to uplift women but Swadhyayis are not “feminists” since they don’t reject the traditional roles of women even though they have devised many novel concepts for them.

• It builds bridges across castes and classes but they are not “social workers”, since their perspective is of being spiritual workers.

• It interprets traditional Vedic concepts in modern ways but they are not “religious reformers”, since they prefer to call their ideas as experiments rather than reforms.

• It inspires patriotism in youth but they are not “nationalistic leaders”, since it is not involved in active politics.

• It focuses on innovative experiments in the field of education in all levels and ages of society but they are not “educators”, since that is not its sole criterion to spread knowledge.

• It is involved in charity work at a massive level in thousands of Indian villages but Swadhyaya is not a “charity organization”, since it rejects the usual definition of charity in which wealth is used to donate to earn name and fame.

• It develops new theological concepts but it is neither a “sect” nor a
”creed” nor a “cult”, since it does not encourage blind devotion to any ideology or personality.

• Major emphasis of teachings is derived from Vedic scriptures but it is not a typical “Hindu organization”, since it is not bounded by the regular definition of Hindu or Hinduism.

• One of the most important aspect is to spread the Vedic philosophy in remote areas of society by active out-reach efforts but it is not a “Missionary Proselytizing church-like movement”, since there is no conversion involved.

Swadhyaya In International/ Interfaith Forums:

Swadhyaya has already left its mark on international/interreligious platforms. Consider following examples:

1. In Jan 2002, when Pope John Paul organized Assisi Peace conference in the wake of 9/11, Swadhyaya was given the first place to deliver the keynote speech. An irony to note here, when Dharma conference or any Hindu/ Indian conference occurs, nobody even has heard of Swadhyaya, but when Pope does a similar event, Swadhyaya is the most prominent presence. It is time for us all to take a serious look at Swadhyaya.

2. In May 2002. When UNICEF organized a conference on Children education, once again it was only Swadhyaya, which was invited from Indian/ Hindu community. Imagine a similar conference organized by Indians/Hindus; Swadhyaya is still Greek and Latin for them!

3. This is the only Vedic Parivar, which was awarded world's biggest monetary award Templeton Prize in 1997 for progress and innovation in religion. This prize was founded by Sir John Templeton about thirty years ago to create a prize in the field of religion, since Nobel Prize does not include religion as a category. What makes it even more remarkable is the fact that Templeton Foundation’s major emphasis is to spread the Christianity by emphasizing its scientific appeal. Yet, they could not ignore the innovative zeal of Swadhyaya and had to give this award to a non-Christian thinker. The founder of Swadhyaya was also given Magsaysay Award in 1996 for Community Leadership. It was only after these awards, that Indian Government woke up and awarded Padma Vibhushan to him in 1999.

4. Two North American universities have courses about Swadhyaya, Concordia University, Montreal and University of Iowa. In addition, Swadhyaya is appreciated by scholars such as T S Rukmani, Subhash Kak, Arvind Sharma, Majid Rahnuma, Daniel Gold, Betty Unterburgar, Paul Ekins, Arun Shourie, and Vidyanivas Mishra etc.

Above examples show that Swadhyaya has achieved many milestones with very little effort on publicity, since their focus is more on internal strength and development. It remains a dormant thread in the public sphere because it has never depended on the media for publicity. Swadhyaya is emerging globally as a strong Indic phenomenon unbound by traditional Hindu definition, but based on truly dharmic definition. It is neither sectarian nor dogmatic nor ritualistic; rather it is based on Indic concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, world as a family.

It is time for all of us to take a serious look at Swadhyaya and do a deep analysis of it and say it with pride in international forums of our practical example of Indian culture. On the one hand, we worry that India is not producing enough global leaders and on the other hand we tend to be ignorant of our own leading initiatives.

Pankaj Jain

References

1. http://www.swadhyay.org

2. Concordia University Course on Swadhyaya: From Satyagraha to Swadhyaya, a religion course taught by David Lawrence comparing the life and work of Gandhi and Athavale

3. Majid Rahnuma, Daniel Gold, Betty Unterburgar, Paul Ekins, Arun Shourie, Vidyanivas Mishra and many others have written about Swadhyaya in the book Vital Connections, published in 2000.