Gandhi Before India Read Online Free PDF Page A

Mr Gandhi assures us, find an answer complete and satisfactory in one or two little philosophical works in which he is interested. 11
    Meeting orthodox Christians like the Askews and reading heterodox Christians such as Kingsford and Tolstoy invigorated Gandhi but also perplexed him. Sometime in the late summer of 1894 he wrote a series of letters to his friend and mentor Raychandbhai in India, outlining his confusions. He posed more than two dozen questions, asking, among other things, about the functions of the soul, the existence of God, the antiquity of the Vedas, the divinity of Christ and the treatment of animals.
    Raychandbhai answered with patience and at length. Spiritual equanimity was the essence of self-realization. Anger, conceit, deceit and greed were its adversaries. God was not a physical being, he ‘had no abode outside the self’. God was emphatically ‘not the creator of the universe. All the elements of nature such as atom, space, etc., are eternal and uncreated. They cannot be created from substances other than themselves.’ Raychandbhai also believed that ‘we may make thousands of combinations and permutations of material objects, but it is impossible to create consciousness.’
    The Jain scholar refused to accept the claim of Hindu dogmatists that all religions originated from the Vedas. True, these were very old, older than Buddhist or Jain texts. However, ‘there is no logic in saying that whatever is antique is perfect and whatever is new is imperfect and true.’ Like the Vedas, the Bible could not be said to contain a perfect or singular truth. ‘Allegorically, of course, Jesus can be taken to be a son of God, but rationally such a belief is impossible.’
    A question Gandhi asked, emanating from his experiences in Natal, was: ‘Will there ever develop an equitable order out of the inequities of today?’ The Jain’s answer upheld a reformist anti-Utopianism. It was ‘most desirable that we should try to adopt equity and give up immoraland unjust ways of life’. At the same time, it was ‘inconceivable that all living beings will give up their inequities one day and equity will prevail everywhere’.
    Raychandbhai said the ‘best thing’ would have been for the two of them to ‘meet together and have a personal talk about these questions’. Since – with one in India and the other in South Africa – they could not meet, he instructed Gandhi to cultivate ‘a detached mind and if you have any doubts please [write again] to me. It is the detached mind which gives strength for abstinence and control and ultimately leads the soul to
Nirvana
’. 12
    Gandhi’s theological explorations continued. In April 1895, he visited a Trappist monastery in the Natal highlands, writing about his trip for
The Vegetarian
. The monks ate no fish, flesh or fowl, although an exception was made for the sisters in their midst, who were allowed meat four days a week because they were ‘more delicate than the brothers’. The monastery hummed with artisanal activity, its inmates making shoes, tables and kitchen utensils. What really impressed the Indian visitor was the lack of racial feeling. Whereas elsewhere in Natal, there was ‘a very strong prejudice against the Indian population’, the Trappists ‘believe in no colour distinctions. The Natives are accorded the same treatment as the whites…. They get the same food as the brothers, and are dressed as well as they themselves are.’ The contrast with other white Christians was stark. ‘It proves conclusively,’ wrote Gandhi, ‘that a religion appears divine or devilish, according as its professors choose to make it appear.’ 13
    In June 1895, the non-monastic Christians of Natal brought in a new bill aimed at Gandhi’s compatriots. This proposed that labourers who stayed on after the expiry of their contract pay an annual tax of £3, then a substantial sum. The supporters of the tax hoped it would force Indians to re-indenture, or else go