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interpretation of the Gita by Gandhi is strikingly different from other interpretations of the same by venerable scholars. Gandhi justified his interpretation by making the following statements about the qualifications of a good interpreter of the Gita.
'I am not aware of the claims made by the translators of enforcing the meaning of the Gita in their own lives. At the back of my reading there is the claim of an endeavour to enforce the meaning in my own conduct for an unbroken period of forty years i.e. the one with prayerful study and spiritual experience at the feet of a guru and scan the spirit of the scripture rather than allegorical meaning. 24
These observations of Gandhi are similar to Mahavira's delivery of his sermons in Prakrit language, the language of commoners instead of Sanskrit the language of Brahmins and the learned and based on his experience as He always ended his sermon with 'Te bemi' i.e. so I say indicating he is talking from experience. Similarly qualities of an interpreter/Acharya indicated in Jain holy literature, given below, are similar to Gandhi's claim of talking from long experience while interpreting The Gita.
"That teacher is worthy who is free from desire for sensual pleasures, is free from bondage and possessions and endowed with the practice of knowledge acquisition, and is a strenuous practitioner of meditation and austerities. 25
In Jainism Anasakti means detachment (vitaragata) and Yoga means action. Anasakti implies absence of Asakti (attachment, infatuation, indulgence) and action implies the activity of embodied soul to perform actions either for its self realization or for the welfare of others (hitopadesh). The story of Madhubindu described pictorially in Jain literature shows how attachments to the worldly pleasures, which are momentary, cause pain and Sansara (cycle of birth and death). Jainism is accordingly called
Pg.134 Gandhi & Jainism
