About Pandurang Shastri Athavale
Pandurang Shastri Athavale, also known as Dada /Dadaji, was an Indian activist, philosopher, spiritual leader, social revolutionary, and religion reformist, who founded the Swadhyaya Parivar in 1954. Swadhyaya is a self-study process based on the Bhagavad Gita which has spread across nearly 100,000 villages in India, Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania and other Asian countries with five million adherents. Noted for his discourses on the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas and the Upanishads. In 1991, Shyam Benegal created and directed the film Antarnaad (The Inner Voice), based on Athavale's Swadhyaya Movement or Prayogs, starring Shabana Azmi and Kulbhushan Kharbanda, among others. He was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1997 and the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1996 for Community Leadership, along with India's second-highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan Award, in 1999. He also won the Rashtrabhusan award given to him by the FIE Foundation for Progress in Religion. Swadhyaya Parivar established itself in India in 1978 with adherents meeting every Sunday, where prayers are sung and a video recording of Athavale teaching about the Vedic dharma is played.
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