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religious practices. However, The Gita and Raychandbhai influenced him most to firm up his spiritual roots and their practice. J.T.F. Jordens in his paper talks of the impact of Rajchandra on Gandhi in the following words:
Raychand's answers pacified him. It is in these answers that we find fundamental ideas that are very similar to those that we found to be the basic principles of Gandhi's conception of scriptures and religion and of The Gita-interpretation.”
The parallelism between Raychand's ideas as expressed in that letter of 1894 and those of Gandhi, are so pertinent and striking that one had to conclude that Raychand's influence on Gandhi's ideas was decisive.
Thus Jainism had profound impact on Gandhi. Not surprisingly, Bal Gangadhar Tilak once mentioned that he had always taken Gandhi to be a Jain. 3
Gandhi said “The seeds had been long sown. It only needed watering to take root, to flower and fructify, and the watering came in the appropriate time'. His mission was to root out the evil.
We shall continue this analysis in chapter V.
Conclusion South Africa provided Gandhi the soil-force for his spiritual inclinations to take deep roots and start fructifying in his professional and social activities. It is here that that he realized his life mission as Self realization i.e. see God face-to-face or attain moksa. He considered service to oppressed beings as service to God. He also firmed his views on God and interpreted it as Truth or Truth is God. He firmed up his doctrine that Truth
Gandhi & Jainism
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