BRAHMIN'S DUTY

Hence as a Brahmin, it was his duty to accept charity and at the same time he should, in turn do charity also for a deserving cause. This gave rise to a thought in his mind that he could very well make use of the charity by spending it for the upliftment of the cultural heritage. This is a prime responsibility of a Brahmin. He also thought that by refusing, he might be able to earn a reputation for renouncing such charities but at the same time what good would such a reputation be if he had to fall back on his responsibilities enjoined upon him by the scriptures. So he started looking for an outlet, which would give him the satisfaction of executing this responsibility.

In his pursuit to find such an outlet a thought crossed his mind, that so far he had been devoting his entire time to reciting kathas, so why not now use some of this time to do something, which would help the society in developing assets within themselves. Such an opportunity soon lay at his feet when he was invited to Porbandar to recite a Bhagwat katha. Porbandar is the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, a town in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat State on the West Coast of India. It is also the birth place of Sudama, a dear friend of Lord Krishna.

The locals of Porbandar requested him to visit the Sanskrit school in a village called Babada, close to Porbandar. It was during this visit that he immediately decided that this is what he would like to do and this is exactly what he should be doing. That is to run a school, which would teach Sanskrit and develop in the students the cultural heritage and induct lineage into them. At the request of the locals, he accepted the trusteeship and started infusing funds into the school, which very soon gained recognition and the number of applicants to it increased. He was later appointed Chairman of the trust. In order that he could accept more applications for admission he started looking for a new place to house the school.

The government of Gujarat was kind enough to give him 85 acres of land opposite the Porbandar airport for this purpose. More trustees were chosen by Bhaishri and inducted into the trust called Shree Bhartiya Sanskruti Samvardhak Trust, which was responsible for running the school. The trustees under the guidance of Bhaishri went all out to develop this school into a Vidyaniketan (residential college).

Goals

Plans were formulated to set up a complex with total amenities to house 500 students on the campus and to have their education in Sanskrit, grammar and other essential modern subjects necessary to become capable and virtuous Brahmins. The college would be called Rishikul and the teaching would be given as per the ancient Vedic Tapovan system.

In the modern context, the society is unable to get educated Brahmins who are well versed in scriptures and can conduct religious functions and rituals. Bhaishri noticed that practicing Brahmins did not even have sufficient knowledge of Sanskrit, leave aside conversing in Sanskrit. Hence Bhaishri thought that his Vidyaniketan will fill the void and produce proficient Brahmins with the following qualities: