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TULSI-PRAJNA
The following preliminary conclusions have been made :
(1) The question of ideological indebtress is always tricky. Such a great individual as Gandhi could not be shaped by other personality though he admitted that Tolstoy "changed his inner being". Gandhi is message as well as the movement he directed was so original that the question of borrowing could not arise. But still there is an amount of iross referances that require accurate presentation with this purpose in view I tried to compare their views on nonviolence. Russian national character is rooted in orthodox christianity, but the idea of non-violence is alieni to it though compassion and mercy to the weak is our distinguished feature.
In Russian Intellectual (secular) history Tolstoy was the first to raise his voice against war to smash any attempts to justify war under certain circumstances. He was also the first to urge people not to resist evil by violence and to live by love.
Gandhi was brought up in Indian culture. The idea of nonviolence is present in all Indian religions : Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, I am inclined to say Gandhi's backgroud was molded by bis Jaina neighbourhood but still in South Africa where he became social leader of the oppressed Indians, he might have been also inspired by Tolstoy's Kingdom of Heaven is within you".2 This book relieved his loneliness in prison and he recommended it to all people to read.
(2) Sympathy with "the injured and humiliated" has been always a characteristic feature of Russian literature and thought, Tolstoy's voice condemning landlordism was the strongest. In his novels "Anna Kurenina” “War and peace” he gives way to harsh reality of disease, death, child's mortality.
Gandhi was placed in similar context but unlike Tolstoy who did not believe in massive action, Mahatma Gandhi was a leader and most successful organiser of mass-anti-imperialist struggle in India.
(3) Gandhi was aware of Tolstoy's experiments in education (new methods and contents, relevance to peasants life). The literature related to Gandhi's "Ashrams" as educational centers convinced me that reforms carried out by Indian leader echoed Tolstoy preaching on this subject. 8
(4) The integrety of the spirit is a genuine concept of Russian philosophy which has always been concerned with man's destiny." The integrity of spirit means that different faculties do not contradict each other. In this context Russian thinkers criticised Western civilization where individual's consciousness is Pragmentated, split,
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