Gandhis Teachers Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta

Author(s): Satish Sharma
Publisher: Gujarat Vidyapith Ahmedabad

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Gandhi's Teachers: Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta
visited. Gandhi listened to all of them with deep interest and respect. These early experiences inculcated in Gandhi a serious religious orientation and also respect for different religions. The only exception at that time was Christianity, as Christian missionaries in those days stood near Gandhi's high school and poured abuses on Hindu gods in order to convert Hindus to Christianity. They also made the new converts eat beef, drink liquor, change to a Western name, and wear European dress. The missionaries, then, forced the new converts to defame Hindu gods and the country's age-old customs and traditions. Gandhi thought that a religion which allowed people to do all this was not worth respecting and he did not have a favorable impression of Christianity. Only later in England and South Africa, he was able to change his opinion and develop a more favorable impression of Christianity.
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During his stay in England, two Theosophist friends invited Gandhi to read with them Sir Edwin Arnold's The Song Celestial (Bhagavad Gita). They also recommended to him the reading of Sir Edwin Arnold's The Light of Asia (about Buddha). Gandhi read these texts, but later also read the Old and New Testament and several other religious books. The Song Celestial made a great impression on Gandhi and he found the following verse particularly enchanting:41
If one
Ponders on objects of the sense, there springs Attraction; from attraction grows desire, Desire flames to fierce passion, passion breeds Recklessness;
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then the memory-all betrayed
Lets noble purpose go, and saps the mind, Till purpose, mind, and man are all undone.
In the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount made a deep impression on Gandhi: "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak too.' "42 This reminded Gandhi of a