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88 Śramana, Vol 65, No. 3 & 4, July-December 2014
of India in 1877, but it did little to save more than five million people from starvation and epidemics during the famine of 189697. He described Englishmen as conquerors who laid claim to 'extraterritorial right throughout India.' Yet his patriotism was not insular as he stood for amity and cooperation among different nations at cultural and economic levels. Despite his reservations about the ethical dimensions of the British export, he praised the British manufacturers for understanding the Indian economic milieu and the requirements of people. He was the first Jaina to speak on trade relations between India and America and to guide the latter on what to export at an international meet organized by W.P.Wilson, Director of Philadelphia Commercial Museum.1
Born on August 25, 1864 in an affluent Jaina family of Mahuva, a small town on the Arabian sea coast, and educated at Bhavnagar (Gujarat) and in Bombay (Mumbai), Virchand Raghavji (V R) Gandhi became the youngest Honorary Secretary of Shri Jaina Association of India at the age of twenty one, due to his keen interest and involvement in the administration of charitable and religious trusts. A towering intellectual, visionary, orator, writer, and social reformer, he was a polyglot who knew fourteen languages and was conversant both with rational western thought and traditional Indian wisdom. He knew as much about Jainism in which he had been trained in a Jaina monastery by Shrimad Vijayanandsurishwar (Muni Atmarama ji) whom he represented at the Chicago Parliament, as with the fundamentals of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. He was well versed in history, philosophy, psychology, science and mysticism, and quoted profusely from scholarly works. He could address large audiences with rare confidence and speak sometime for hours elaborating on a subject. Just as Swami Vivekananda founded the Vedanta Society of New York and Anagarika Dharmapala, the Maha Bodhi Society of America, Virchand Raghavji Gandhi founded three institutions in America - Gandhi Philosophical Society, School of Oriental Philosophy, and Society for the Education of Women of India.
