About Bhavan's Journal

Bhavan's Journal: The English Fortnightly of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Overview

Bhavan's Journal is an English-language fortnightly magazine published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan from Mumbai, Maharashtra. Started in 1954, it is devoted to life, literature and culture, and it is published on the 15th and 30th of each month, making it one of India's longest-running cultural periodicals. The journal describes itself as a digest containing all that is best in India's culture, art, spirituality and philosophy, and it has been recognised as one of the most widely read magazines of its kind in the country, with a readership in India and abroad. Shunning sensationalism, it has remained steady in its mission of presenting Indian thought, literature and values to a general educated readership for over seven decades.

The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

Bhavan's Journal is the organ of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, the cultural and educational institution founded in 1938 by Dr. Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi — Kulapati Munshi — with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi. Munshi, a lawyer, writer, educationalist and social reformer, established the Bhavan at a time when independence was approaching and Indians were concerned about the character of the new nation that would emerge. He envisioned an institution rooted in Indian soil that would also embrace the best of the modern world in science, technology, economics and management. Under the Bhavan's banner, Sanskrit classes are conducted alongside modern disciplines, and the institution's publishing programme — the Bhavan's Book University — has brought out over 1,800 value-based publications. The Bhavan's official landmarks record the starting of Bhavan's Journal, a fortnightly in English devoted to life, literature and culture, in the year 1954.

The Founder Editor

The founder editor of Bhavan's Journal was S. Ramakrishnan, who served as the executive secretary and director general of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Ramakrishnan steered the Bhavan into a worldwide cultural organisation, and under his leadership the institution grew to encompass hundreds of constituent institutions and kendras in India and abroad. As the journal's founding editor, he set its editorial direction and tone — a blend of cultural reflection, literary quality and spiritual inquiry. His own books, including collections of articles first published in Bhavan's Journal, extended the journal's reach. The current assistant editor of the journal is Smt. Vatsala Pisharody, and the editorial, circulation and advertisement offices are located at the Bhavan's headquarters on Kulapati Dr. K. M. Munshi Marg, Chowpatty, Mumbai 400007.

Publication Profile

Bhavan's Journal is a fortnightly in the English language, published on the 15th and 30th of each month, with 24 issues in a year. The journal's publishing schedule includes 22 ordinary issues and two special numbers each year; the special numbers run to over 240 pages. The cover price of a regular issue is Rs 20, while the special numbers are priced at Rs 30. Annual subscriptions are offered at Rs 400 for one year, Rs 750 for two years and Rs 1,000 for three years for readers in India, with higher rates for registered post and an airmail rate of Rs 7,500 per year for readers abroad, postage free. Subscriptions can be taken through the Bhavan's online bookstore at bhavans.info. For members of the Bhavan, life membership entitles the holder to a copy of one of the Bhavan's journals — Bhavan's Journal in English, Navneet in Hindi or Navneet Samarpan in Gujarati — for twenty years.

Content and Character

The journal's contents reflect its founding description: a digest of all that is best in India's culture, art, spirituality and philosophy. Its pages carry articles on literature, religion, philosophy, history, education and contemporary affairs, written from the standpoint of Indian cultural values. The Bhavan describes the journal's achievement as the blending of "extracted nectar" with the delicacies of the contemporary literary diet — presenting the finest of India's cultural, artistic, spiritual and philosophical thought in a form accessible to the modern reader. The journal has consciously avoided cheap popularity and sensationalism, holding instead to what its publishers call its noble mission. This editorial steadiness has earned it a reputation as a serious yet readable cultural magazine.

Special Numbers and Books

The journal's two annual special numbers are among its most distinctive features. These enlarged issues, each running to more than 240 pages, gather substantial articles on themes of cultural and spiritual importance. Material first published in Bhavan's Journal has frequently been collected into books issued by the Bhavan's Book University. One example is Mahatma Gandhi: Eternal Pilgrim of Peace and Love by S. Ramakrishnan, a 136-page collection of articles published in the journal over several years, presenting the author's first-hand impressions of Gandhiji's work along with letters from eminent correspondents, with a foreword by Dr. K. D. Gangrade and a preface by M. V. Kamath. Such collections extend the life of the journal's best writing beyond the fortnightly cycle.

The journal's publishing context also includes the Bhavan's wider book programme, under which the founder editor's other works have appeared. Alongside the Gandhi collection, S. Ramakrishnan's titles issued by the Bhavan include Whither India Today and the Culture Course textbooks for schools, works that share the journal's concern with communicating Indian cultural values to contemporary readers. The Bhavan's online bookstore, which handles subscriptions to Bhavan's Journal, also serves as the retail outlet for these books, making the journal part of an integrated publishing operation that spans periodicals, textbooks, translations of the epics and scholarly works.

Sister Periodicals

Bhavan's Journal is the English flagship of a family of Bhavan periodicals. Its Hindi counterpart is Navneet, a monthly digest in Hindi, and the Gujarati journal is Navneet Samarpan. Together, the three journals carry the Bhavan's cultural programme to readers in India's three major linguistic spheres. The Bhavan's publishing activity also includes the monumental History and Culture of the Indian People, an eleven-volume work produced by the Bharatiya Itihasa Vibhag, established in 1944 at Kulapati Munshi's instance to bring out an exhaustive and authentic history of India from the Vedic age to modern times. The Bhavan's graded Culture Course books for schoolchildren, its editions of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and its translations of Sanskrit classics form part of the same publishing mission that the journal serves.

Readership and Reach

Bhavan's Journal has been described by the Bhavan as one of the most widely read magazines of the country, with what it calls a vast and enlightened readership in India and abroad. Its readers include the Bhavan's own large family of members, students and well-wishers, as well as general readers interested in Indian culture, literature and spiritual thought. The journal reaches readers through subscriptions, the Bhavan's kendras and book outlets, and its online bookstore. For life members of the Bhavan, the journal is part of the membership itself, ensuring a stable core readership. Its presence in the Bhavan's libraries, wherever they exist, extends its reach to students and researchers.

Seven Decades of Continuity

Since 1954, Bhavan's Journal has appeared every fortnight without interruption, a record of continuity that few Indian cultural periodicals can equal. Through the decades it has chronicled independent India's cultural life — its literary movements, its spiritual debates, its educational experiments and its engagement with modernity — always from the perspective of the Bhavan's founding values of Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram: truth, love and beauty. The journal remains what it was at its founding: an English fortnightly devoted to life, literature and culture, published from Chowpatty in Mumbai, carrying the best of Indian thought to readers who seek, in the Bhavan's phrase, the right mental and spiritual nourishment.