Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Peoples Party of India, is one of the largest political parties in India, serving as the governing party on the state and fed- eral levels at various times in recent years.

The BJP is the political wing of the old RASH-

TRIYA SVAYAM SEVAK SANGH (RSS), the National

Organization for Self-help. It was formed as a separate party in 1980 after internal differences within the Janata Party resulted in the collapse of its government in 1979. BJP held the prime min- istership of India from 1998 to 2004 under the leadership of Atal Bihari Bajpayee. In 2004 it was defeated in parliamentary elections by a coalition led by the Congress Party.

The Bharata Janata Party considers itself to be a party of HINDU NATIONALISM; its ideology is called Hindutva, defined not in terms of the Hindu religion but as Indianness. The party points to the original meaning of the word Hindu, coined by Arab conquerors to refer to all the people living in India. However, critics have labeled the BJP a Hindu fundamentalist or even a Hindu fascist party.

The BJP rose to prominence during the tur- moil surrounding the Babri Masjid Mosque in the Uttar Pradesh city of AYODHYA. This mosque was built in 1528 C.E. on a site claimed to be the birthplace of RAMA, an AVATAR of Visnu. During the 1940s RSS members erected an image of Rama in the mosque, and the government later sealed off the mosque. During the 1980s the RSS began staging violent protests against its very existence.

Lal Krishnan Advani, the leader of the BJP and a leader in the VISHVA HINDU PARISHAD (World Hindu Council), was indicted on several occa- sions for leading the protests. This mosque was destroyed in 1992 by RSS activists, prompting nationwide riots that killed 3,000 people.

In 2006 BJP was voted out of office to a great extent because of the Gujarat violence of 2003, when 3,000 Muslims were killed, for which the BJP chief minister, Narendra Modi, was held responsible.

Further reading: Gwilym Beckerlegge and Anthony Copley, eds. Saffron and Seva (Hinduism in Public and Private) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003);

Chetan Bhat, Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies, and Modern Myths (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001);

Blom Thomas Hanson. The Saffron Way: Democracy and Nationalism in Modern India. (Princeton, N.J.: Princ- K 80 Bharatiya Janata Party

eton University Press, 1999); Martin E. Mary and R.

Scott Appleby, eds., Religion, Ethnicity, and Self Identity:

Nations in Turmoil (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1997); Peter van der Veer, Religious Nationalism, Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1994).

Bhartrihari

(c. fourth or fifth century) grammarian and philosopher

Bhartrihari was a philosopher of language whose work was seminal in the development of the Indian theories of language and of MANTRA. There are several extant accounts of his life, but none seem to have a historical basis. He was primarily known as a grammarian, but his works had great philosophical impact as well.

Bhartrihari developed a philosophy that came to be known as “word ADVAITA,” or non-dual- ism, based on the notion that the word (shabda) is the transcendent reality. His idea of “Shabda

BRAHMAN,” or Ultimate Reality, as the basis of all language, broke the barrier between grammar and philosophy. He is best known for his work Vakyapadiya (Treatise on words and sentences), which formulates the sphota theory of linguistic utterance, much debated in successive times.

Bhartrihari maintained that the study of Sanskrit grammar alone could cause one to attain libera- tion from birth and rebirth.

Further reading: Sebastian Alackpally, Being and Mean- ing: Reality and Language in Bhartrihari and Heidegger (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002); Harold Coward, Bhartrihari (Boston: Twayne, 1976); Gayatri Rath, Linguistic Philosophy in Vakyapadiya (Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, 2000).

Bhaskara

(c. ninth century C.E.) Vedantic philosopher

Bhaskara was one of the most important phi- losophers of VEDANTA. He accepts the notions of non-duality—the unity of reality—as argued by

the earlier SHANKARA, but does not accept their notion that the phenomenal universe, the every- day world, is illusory. He instead argues that the universe is a real evolute of the Supreme Reality

BRAHMAN, regarded not as a person but as an entity.

Only one of his books is extant, a commentary on the Vedantic text the VEDANTA SUTRA.

Further reading: S. N. Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy. Vol. 3 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975); A.

B. Khanna, Bhaskaracarya: A Study with Special Refer- ence to His Brahmasutrabhasya (Delhi: Amar Granth, 1998).

Bhavabhuti

(early eighth century C.E.) Sanskrit playwright

One of the greatest authors in Indian literature, Bhavabhuti is most famous for his three surviving Sanskrit dramas: Mahaviracharita (Adventures of that great hero Rama), Uttararamacharita (The later adventures of Rama), and Malatimadhava (The story of Malati and Madhava). Mahavira- charita tells with considerable originality the full story of RAMA from his birth to the defeat of his enemy RAVANA. The Uttararamacharita is a story of the children of Lord Rama as they grew up in the forest, a story not told in the original RAMAYANAS. Malatimadhava is basically a romance.

Further reading: Jan Gonda, ed., A History of Indian Lit- erature. Vol. 1 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976);

Chittenjoor Kunhan Raja, Survey of Sanskrit Literature (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962).

Bhave, Vinoba

(1885–1982) leader in the Indian independence movement

Vinoba Bhave, a prominent nonviolent leader of the Indian independence movement, was a pro- lific popular writer and a tireless organizer for land redistribution and social reform. He contin- ued to agitate on behalf of Gandhian social values in the decades after independence.

Bhave, Vinoba 81 J

Vinayak Narahari Bhave was born on Septem- ber 11, 1885, to a Brahmin family in the village of Gagode in Maharashtra. Vinoba (an affectionate nickname) studied the works of Maharashtra’s saints and philosophers as a boy. He had a pas- sion for mathematics, but as had Sri RAMAKRISHNA

before him, he seemed uninterested in the ordi- nary course of education. He spent two years in college dissatisfied and adrift. Early in 1916, on his way to Bombay (Mumbai) to appear for the intermediate examination, he threw his school and college certificate into a fire and decided to change course for BENARES (Varanasi), the Hindu holy city, to study Sanskrit.

At Benares, Vinoba encountered the views of Mohandas Karamchand GANDHI. Enthusiastic about Gandhi’s ideas of uplifting the poor and purity of purpose he joined Gandhi’s ASHRAM at Sabarmati near Ahmedabad in Gujarat state. At Gandhi’s request he took charge of the ashram at Wardha in Maharashtra in 1921. In 1923 he began to publish the monthly Maharashtra Dharma in the regional Marathi language, to which he contributed articles on Indian philoso- phy, including popular studies on the Abhangas of the poet-saint TUKARAM. Later on, the monthly became a weekly and continued to be published for three years.

On December 23, 1932, Vinoba moved to Nalwadi (a village about two miles from Wardha), where he tried to implement his idea of support- ing himself by spinning. When he grew ill in 1938, he moved to what he called Paramdham Ashram in Paunar, which remained his headquar- ters. Vinoba was heavily involved in the freedom movement throughout this period. In 1923, he was jailed for several months at Nagda and Akola for taking a prominent part in agitation at Nag- pur. In 1925, he was sent by Gandhi to Vykon in Kerala to supervise the entry of the Harijans (Dalits, or untouchables) to the temple. In 1932, he was jailed for six months for raising his voice against British rule. In 1940, he was selected by Gandhi as the first person to do “Truth Force”

(satyagraha), Gandhi’s nonviolent method of social action, on his own.

Vinoba was jailed three times during 1940–41 for successively longer terms. He became known nationally when Gandhi selected him for indi- vidual action, introducing him in a statement on October 5, 1940. Vinoba took part in the Quit India movement of 1942, for which he was jailed for three years at Vellore and Seoni.

Jail for Vinoba had become a place for reading and writing. He saw the proofs of his book Gitai (a Marathi translation of the BHAGAVAD GITA) in the Dhulia jail, where he lectured on the Gita to his jailed colleagues; the talks were collected by Sane Guruji and later published as a book. In Nagpur jail he wrote Swarajya Shastra (the treatise of self rule) and completed a collection of the bhajans (religious songs) of the saints Gyaneshwar (see JNANESHVARA), Eknath and Namdev. His popular books eventually treated many diverse topics in religion, philosophy, education, and the common good.

In March 1948, Gandhi’s followers and work- ers met at Sevagram, to discuss the idea of Sarvodaya Samaj (Society for the uplift of all).

Vinoba got busy with activities to soothe the wounds of partition of the nation. In the begin- ning of 1950, Vinoba started several idealistic reform movements.

In 1951 Vinoba launched the activity for which he became most famous, the Bhudan (Gift of the Land) movement. For the next 13 years he walked from place to place around the country asking large landowners and villages to offer land to the poor, to help bridge the great divide between the landed and landless. His efforts yielded surpris- ing success by the time he returned to Paunar on April 10, 1964.

Over the following several years he continued in his travels, now campaigning against the various divisions within Indian society: caste, language, and class. In 1970, he announced his decision to stay in one place. He observed a year of silence from December 25, 1974, to December 25, 1975.

K 82 Bhave, Vinoba

In 1976, he undertook a fast to stop the slaughter of cows. His spiritual pursuits intensified as he withdrew from his practical work. He passed away on November 15, 1982, at his ashram.

Vinoba’s contribution to the history of the nonviolent movement remains significant. All his life he campaigned for “people’s government,”

according to the Gandhian principle of extreme decentralization. He believed, as Gandhi did, that government and the economy should be built from the village up, not from the capital city down. Though his idealistic campaigns may have fallen short of their goals, all who encountered Vinaba saw a generous, committed, spiritually directed person. He inspired a whole generation.

As a sign of respect for him and his spiritual accomplishment, Vinoba Bhave was referred to most commonly as ACHARYA, “the learned one.”

Further reading: S. R. Bakshi and Sangh Mittra, Saints of India (New Delhi: Criterion, 2002); Verinder Grover, Political Thinkers of Modern India (New Delhi: Deep &

Deep Publications, 1990–93); Michael W. Sonnleitner, Vinoba Bhave on Self-Rule and Representative Democracy (New Delhi: Promilla, 1988); Marjorie Sykes, trans., Moved by Love: The Memoirs of Vinoba Bhave (Hyder- abad: Sat Sahitya Sahayogi Sangh, 1994).

bhavyatva

See JAINISM.

bhedabheda

Bhedabheda is a term used in some Vedantic phi- losophies to describe the relation between the individual self and the divinity. Bheda means “dif- ference,” abheda means “nondifference”; together the term refers to things that are different and not different at the same time. This school views the individual self as nondifferent (abheda) from the divinity, while recognizing that in certain respects the divinity is different from the individual self (for example, regarding its supremacy over the universe).

This point of view was expounded by BHASKARA

and by the CHAITANYA school, whose approach is referred to as achintya bhedabheda. NIMBARKA’s school refers to itself formally as Dvaitadvaita,

“duality and non-duality,” a different expression of the same concept, although it too is sometimes called bhedabheda.

Further reading: Madan Mohan Agrawal, Essence of Vaisnavism: Philosophy of Bhedabheda (Delhi: Ajanta, 1992); Dasgupta, Surendranath. A History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vols. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975);

Swami Tapasyananda, Bhakti Schools of Vedanta (Lives and Philosophies of Ramanuja, Nimbarka, Madhva, Val- labha and Chaitanya.) (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1990).