Gandhi Before Gandhi

SR No.: 007501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai
Publication Year: 2009
Total Pages: 198
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & History
File Size: 34 MB

Page 163

GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA
doubtless are with the Buddhistic and Vedanta systems of Hindu thought which make the Absolute to be Reine Seyn or the 'Pure Being' of the Eleatics, I think that you will be very much interested as I am, with an East Indian doctrine which holds to personal individuality, as the highest being and believes in individual immortality, in fact in immortality ante as well as post, a doctrine something like that of Professor Thomas Davidson and Professor George H. Howison of the University of California."
The oriental Standpoint on the great problems of life and destiny have never been understood by the American people because those claiming to present this standpoints have done so either on the basis of secondhand knowledge or in a fragmentary way,-this opportunity should not be lost of hearing an Oriental scholar who is not only filled with the spirit of the oldest Hindu philosophy, but has made a profound study of a wide range of Sanskrit Literature and the various phases of Hindu thought.
Mr. Gandhi has been strongly urged to deliver this course and has kindly consented to delay his departure from New York to deliver these lectures.
(A cutting from an American Paper. The Inter Ocean, Chicago, Sunday Dec. 6th 1896.)
162
The New York Times
Published: November 29, 1897 Copyright © The New York Times
THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA
VIRCHAND GANDHI OF BOMBAY TELLS OF THEIR ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.
DENIAL OF-TOLD STORIES
Pronounces the Legend of Juggernaut-an English Calumny & Trace the Beginnings of the Caste System.
Wearing a turban of yellow, signifying knowledge and a robe of purple, portraying purity and activity, Virchand Gandhi of Bombay delivered a lecture on the religions of India before a small but deeply interested audience in the New Century Hall, 509 Fifth Avenue, yesterday morning.
Mr. Gandhi is the Honorary Secretary of the Jain Community, one of the religious sects of India, and his present visit to this country is for the purpose of securing aid for education of the women of his native land and, incidentally, to correct some of the misapprehensions, that he says exist, in America, concerning the
religions of the East. He was, a delegate to the Parliament of Religions at the Chicago World's Fair and has since traveled and lectured extensively in Eastern and Western cities. His lecture yesterday was preliminary to a series which he proposes to deliver during the present month.
"Religion in India," said Mr. Gandhi, "has a very different meaning from what it has in other countries. In Western lands there is a distinct division between the religious and the social life. There is one rule of conduct for layman and another for clergymen. This distinction has never found its place in the life of the people of