Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 35

A GANDHI BEFORE GANDHI
We depend for
our salvation on our own acts and deeds and not on a constituted attorney.
We in India, from the lowest Pariah to the highest potentate look upon life here as a mere waiting room from the known to the unknown, as a mere stage of growth from the lowest animalcule to the highest and perfected state. We believe in the eternity of the soul, meaning thereby that it is eternal at both ends, at the beginning as well as at the end. We preach and practice brotherhood not only of men but of all living beings--not on Sundays only but all the days of the week. We believe in the law of universal justice. We believe that our present condition is the result of our past actions and that we are not bound by the freak of an irresponsible governor-Judge and Prosecutor at the same time. We depend for our salvation on our own acts and deeds and not on a constituted attorney.
Christianity does not come alone
Our ideas of life with which we were infused, long before my country became the coveted land of invaders, and which are still the underlying principles of our so-called superstitions were and are different from those of Christian nations. The idea of life with you has always been, as one of your ablest scholars has put it, that of a struggle for existence, a struggle for power and dominion, for wealth and enjoyment."
Christianity does not come alone. It does not come through Jesus Christ. It comes to us through its modern representatives. It comes percolating through the layers of superstition and bigotry, of intolerance and persecution of damnation and eternal hell-fire.
It takes on itself the qualities of these layers and imparts them to those that are received within its folds, in addition to the vices that are its own - such as proceed from the doctrine of vicarious atonement and original sin. And further it has brought to us its peculiar ideas of life, of marriage, of social relations and what not.
These are the ideas which dominate the history of all nations whose history is known to you and naturally these would be their ideas as long as they overlook the eternity of duration, the infinity of space, and the omnipotence of soul and consequently they look upon this life "as an arena for gladiatorial strife and combat or as a market for cheating and huckstering."