Selected Speeches of V R Gandhi

Author(s): Virchand R Gandhi
Publisher: Vallabhsuri Smarak Nidhi Godiji Jain Derasar Mumbai

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I was perfectly astonished at this explanation of the picture and of the view of life taken by the Hindus. This was when I was eight years old. Twenty years after that, only the other day I happened to read one of Professor Max Müller's works, and I was much more astonished to see that he also expressed it in pretty nearly the same terms. Here are his views :-Our idea of life on earth has always been that of a struggle for existence, a struggle for power and dominion, for wealth and enjoyment. These are the ideas which dominate the history of all nations whose history is known to us. Our own sympathies also are almost entirely on that side. But was man placed on this earth for that one purpose only? Can we not imagine a different purpose, particularly under conditions such as existed for many centuries in India and nowhere else? In India the necessaries of life were few, and those which existed were supplied without much exertion on the part of man by a bountiful nature. Clothing, scanty as it was, was easily provided. Life in the open air or in the shades of the forest was more delightful than life in cottages or palaces. The danger of inroads from foreign countries was never dreamt of before the time of Darius and Alexander, and then on one side only, on the North, while more than a silver streak protected all around the far stretching shores of the country. Why should the ancient inhabitants of India not have accepted their lot ? Was it so very unnatural for them, endowed as they were, with a transcendent intellect, to look upon this life not as an arena for gladiatorial strife
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