Gandhi's Autobiography as commentary on the
Bhagavad Gitii
Kay Koppedrayer
On April 6. 1926. Mohandas K . Gandhi began his daily discourse on the
Bha,ycr\,~~d
Gitd by recalling the significance of the date. Describing it as
marking for India the day of 'religious awakening,' in an allusion to the
campaign of civil disobedience protesting the Rowlatt Act,' he reminded his
followers of the beginnings of scrty6grcrhcr. His commentary on that history
was brief but revealing of the linkages Gandhi saw between the study of the
Bl~ugcr~ztrcl
Girci and the struggle for .x~~trrfij
or Indian self-rule. In his remarks,
Gandhi drew attention to what he described as the impulse of S I ' L I ~ ~ J'to
,
bring
about spiritual awakening in us ...to go from untruth to truth, from darkness
into light' through the cultivation of the self and the reining in of the senses
(CW 32: 14 1 ). Gandhi then went on to take up that day's verse from the Gitti
(2.36), a verse which speaks of the dangers of unrestrained senses and an
undisciplined state of being (CW 32: 142).
At the same time Gandhi was engaged in his daily meditations on the
Blzcrgrr~v~tl
Gitd, he was also producing a commentary on his life. This commentary. originally appearing as serialized articles in the weekly publication. the
Nrr\wjrji~,cr~r,
became the Stol-ie.~uf' 1 1 7 ~ c.~peritlle~lt.~
~ ' i t ltrrrtl~
~
0 1 . AII ~ 1 1 1 1 0 hiog~rphy,the telling of Gandhi's life by Gandhi himself. Perhaps the most
witlely read of all of his work, Gandhi's autobiographical narrative begins with
vignettes of his childhood and moves through his education in England. his
formative years as barrister and activist in South Africa. his return to India, and
his subsequent entry into and his reshaping of the independence movement.
More than that, however, in his autobiography, Gandhi teases out his vision of
spiritual, political. and social praxis through the discussions of his developing
understanding of satydgrrrhcr, the holding onto .srr!\.cn~~
(truth) in negotiations of
~
or home rule), crhi/!lsd (nonviolencel, and
situational conflict. . s I ~ I . <(self-rule
I r ~ t c r ~ ~ a t i oJolrr11al
~ ~ t r l o$ Hi~zdrrSrrrdies 6, 1 (April 2002): 47-73
0 2003 by the World Heritage Press Inc.
48 / Kay Koppedrayer
so on. He does this by reviewing and evaluating his life in accordance with his
quest for truth as embodied in his actions (CW 39: 3-5).
Gandhi's public meditations on the Gitci and his commentary on his life in
his weekly articles partially overlapped in time. He began his discourses on the
Gitci at the end of February 1926, his year of retreat at his ii.61-LIIII~I,
bringing
them to a close in late November of the same year. He had begun writing his
weekly autobiographical meditations about three months earlier, at the end of
November 1925, and this work continued on through to February 1929. Several
threads of discussion-on hrrrlz~naccr~:\xror self-p~~rification,
on control of the
senses as a means of realization. o n truth and nonviolence, on service-recur
in both, so much so that I suggest that the two endeavors cannot be so easily
disentangled. Though addressing different audiences and fulfilling different
purposes, his commentary on the Gird and his review of his life can be seen as
informing each other. In the one, his public contemplations on the meaning of
Gitii, there is inner work taking place. 'Through his attempts to articulate to
others what he has fol~ndin the Gird. Gandhi is returning to his most beloved
religious resource for enhanced inspiration and revitalization. In the other, his
offering of an account of the struggles and challenges of his life. Gandhi
explores how he has worked through an understanding of the Gitc? in his various
personal, social. and political campaigns. In effect, I am suggesting that Gandhi's
Stor:\, c?fm!. e.rp~vitnetrrrt~ithtruth can be read as a meditation on the Gird.
In the pages that follow. I lay out the argument for this claim. I will begin
with an overview of Gandlii's interpretation of the Gitci ill light of his development of his particular view of .sl~crrc7jj.Then I take up the Airtohiogt-crl?lz!,.After a
brief review of the context in which Gandhi wrote his autobiography, I tun1 to
the text itself. Here I examine how Gandhi presents and comments on his life in
comparison with the religious and indeed political vision he found in the Gitd.
Throughout. I tie the discussion of Gandhi's interpretation of the G i t ~ and
i
the
material he presents in his autobiography back to his work within the
independence movement.
Then. as a way of investigating whether Gandhi himself ever directly stated
what I claim here, I turn to a 1929 statement in which Gandhi speaks about his
role as a translator and commentator of the Gir~i.Written in Gandhi's typical
style, this statement is packed with layers of meaning. autobiographical detail.
remarks addressed to several different audiences, and didactic content. Ernbedded
in these remarks is Gandhi's statement that his life and his understanding of
the Gitii are inseparable. Here, by way of comparing his work to that of other
commentators of the Gitci, he finds legitimacy in his reading of the Gitd in the
expression of his life. This statement, coming where it does in relation to other
considerations of the Gitd, makes a powerful statement about Gandhi's under-
G i l ~ ~ i l hA~~tobiography
i'.~
ampcotiimrilta~:\~
0 1 1 the Bhagavad Gita / 49
standing of what the reading of, and hence knowledge of, religious scripture
entailed.
To fortify this observation that Gandhi sought to articulate his reading of the
GitL?in his life and work. I conclude with a discussion of how Gandhi chose a
very symbolic moment to release his Gujarati translation of the G i t ~ iThe
.
public
was given access to this work on March 12. 1930 ( C W 4 I : 90). the day Gandhi,
accompanied by seventy-eight of his closest followers, commenced the Salt
March. In this very potent gesture, Gandhi used his actions and those of his
of the
well-chosen army o f srrtyiigrc~hisas lived examples of his ~~nderstanding
GirL?'steachings.
My purpose in this paper is not to compare Gandhi's rendering and commentary on the Gitri with any reading of i t I offer on my own or with other readings
or interpretations of it. An abundance of work on that and similar topics has
already been done. The list is long: I will note only a few of the representative
studies. Arjun Appadurai (1978: 117-22) offers a nuanced reading of the ethical
guidelines Gandhi derived from the Gitii. Margaret Chatterjee ( 1983: 3 5 4 0 )
discusses the way Gandhi's interpretation of the GitL? as allegory differed from
previous commentaries. In an earlier work, K. N. Upadhyaya (1969) found
Gandhi's allegorical explanations unconvincing: Kees Bolle (1989) found his
reading of the text shallow. J. T. F. Jordens (1986) has given close attention to
the messages drawn from the Gitd by Gandhi in light of his encounters with the
text and his understanding of scriptural authority. Bhikhu Parekh (1989) has
outlined how Gandhi insisted that the Gitri professed nonviolence and teachings
of lionattachment as a counterpoint to a growing stream of nationalists who
found in the GitL? support of their use of violence and terrorist tactics. T. S .
Devadoss (1988) has written about the Gitii's influence on Gandhi's work, while
A. K. Ananthanathan (1991) has considered the religious and philosophical
implications of Ganclhi's interpretation. Hans Bakker ( 1 993) has undertaken a
careful examination of Gandhi's translation of the Gitii, finding Gandhi's work
thought. Each of these works has in one
to be more scholarly than previo~~sly
way or another scrutinized Gandhi's interpretation of the Gitii ancl has helped
deepen our understanding of Gandhi's work in light of long comrnentarial
traditions, both Indian and Western, on the GitL?. While these studies heIp
sharpen awareness of Gandhi's presentation of the GitL?, I return in this paper
to what Gandhi tells us about his reading of the Gitri for different purposes.
My attention is on the relationship between Ganclhi's Alltobiograplzy and his
commentarial work on the GitL?.By examining these two pro.jects in the context
of each other and in the context of his life in the 1920s. I suggest that Gandhi's
narrative account of his life is an enactment-an exposition, Gandhian-style--of
the Gitri.
50 / Kay Koppedrayer
DISTILLATION OF THE BHAGAVAD
GITA'SMESSAGE
The volume of references to the G i t ~ in
i Gandhi's writings is significant. Jordens
(1986: 88) observes that over his life, Gandhi produced some three hundred and
h
(1986:
sixty pages on the Gitd, more than on any other topic. T h o ~ ~ gJordens
9 8 ) suggests that Gandhi did not single the Gird out from among the array of
religiously useful books he drew upon while in South Africa, we do find
evidence from Gandhi's writings that he tunied to the Gila at certain important
junctures in his life. In 1909, for example, when again jailed in South Africa for
his civil disobedience activities, Gandhi writes about how his reading of the
Gitd helped him compose himself in light of the unsettling violence he found
among the prisoners ( C W 9: 148). In a letter to a correspondent a year later, he
draws upon his understantling of the Gitri. specifically the striving for a state of
self-control, as the necessary foundation f t ~ r'passive resistance,' a phrase he was
using at the time. He writes:
The function of violence is to obtain reforni by external means: the function
of passive resistance, that is, soul force, is to obtain i t by growth from
within: which, in its turn. is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification (CW
10: 248).
He supports this view with a discussion of how the Gita offers guidance on
overcoming weaknesses and indulgences. Other dominant themes emerge from
Gantlhi's observations on the Gitd's teachings: how it promotes fearlessness
(CIV 10: 198). equanimity (17: 3671, and the acquisition of self-control (10: 52,
14: 134). In a moving letter to his middle son, Manilal, centered around the
topic of self-reforni in 1914, Gandhi zeros in on verse 3.37 of the Gitd, 'It is
desire, anger, born of the quality of rr!jas [passion], all devouring and sinful'
as the main obstacle to both personal and spiritual growth (CW 12: 407). In
these and other discussions, Gandhi turns to the Gitri as a source for the very
foundational work he saw as prior and leading to the social and political transJ
formations his vision of . F \ J L I ~ ~entailed.
During the Rowlatt satj'dgmlla Gandhi reiterated this view of the Gita's place
in political action, only now to an even wider audience. He had asked all Indians
participating in the 1919 hartdl to prepare themselves by taking up reading of
the Gita. However, concerns were voiced about the appropriateness of the Gita,
given not only the implications of violence within the text but also previous
recourse to the Gitd on the part of others such as Balgangadhar Tilak as a
scriptural source of the justification of' any means, even violent ones. in a
G n i i d l ~ i Autobiography
'.~
~ 1 . 5 cornmer~tar:\oil
the Bhagavad Gita / 5 1
struggle of self-determination. Gandhi briefly addressed these concerns in his
.sat\figrrrhtr leaflet no. 18 ( 1919: CW 15: 288-89). Calling a literal reading ot'
the GTtn confusion representative of the current time in which people were
distanced from spiritual truths, Gandhi described the teaching o f the Grta as
entailing a spiritual war that begun within and then moved outwards. Gandhi
spoke of the work taking the image of the war between the PrTnhvas and the
Kauravas to draw attention 'to the war going on in our bodies between the forces
of Good (Pandavas) and the forces of Evil (Kauravas) and has shown that the
latter should be destroyed' ( C W 15: 288). He makes much the same message in
his discourses of 1926:
The battle described [in the Gitn] is, therefore. a struggle between dharma and
odharrnn ....[Tlhe epic describes the battle ever raging between the countless
Kauravas and Pandavas dwelling w ~ t h i nus. It is a battle between the innumerable forces of good and evil which become person~fiedin us as virtues and
vices ( C W 32: 95).
The idea that the text, in Gandhi's words a clhuunn-gr-crntha ( a text dealing with
religious and ethical questions). 'was written to explain man's duty in this inner
strife' ( C W 31: 9 5 ) is the central message he develops in his commentaries and
discussions throughout the 1920s. In 1925 Gandhi writes to a correspondent
that the main teaching of the Gitn was expressed in the second chapter:
The last nineteen verses of the second chapter have since been inscribed on the
tablet of my heart. They contain for me a11 knowledge. The truths they teach
are the 'eternal verities.' There is reasoning in them but they represent realised
knowledge ( 1927: 935 ).'
What is contained in these verses is a description of the sthitaprrijEcr, one who
has achieved perfect control over one's inner self. This is the meaning that
Gandhi maintains he gleaned from his first encounter with the text in 1888-89
in the form of Edwin A ~ n o l d ' sreworked Sor~gcel~.rtitrl.In his autobiography,
Gandhi draws attention to the same verses, noting that the first time he read
them they 'made a deep impression on my mind, and they still ring in my
ears ....I have read almost all the English translations of it, and I regard Sir
Edwin Arnold's as the best. He has been faithful to lthe spirit of the original]
text' ( C W 39: 60, 3 8 I).
These verses of the second chapter emphasize the freeing of oneself from
passion, fear, and wrath and an overcoming of subjugation by the senses (Gitn
2.55-50) and extol the gains of those who discipline the senses in contrast to
52 1 Kay Koppedrayer
those who forfeit both freedom and understanding by the slavish attachment to
sensual gratification and to the ultimately empty delights of their passions (Girl?
2.60-71 ). Here, as elsewhere in his writings in the l920s, Gandhi maintains
that the central teachings of the B ~ L I ~ G
Ni \t ~~irefer
N ~ to self-purification, to be
achieved by ethical and moral actions promoting control of the senses. mind,
and ego (Jordens 1986: 104). This emphasis allowed him to sort the contents of
the Gitd into its essential or core message and peripheral material (Fernhout
1995: 123). Gandhi even advised that those parts of the Gitii which could not be
reconciled with the content of these verses-his view of the core rnessageshoi~ldbe rejected (CCV 28: 16: Fernhout 1995: 123: Gandhi 1927: 935), leading
him to disregard much that others found as fundamental to the text's teachings.
such as an emphasis on hlz~lkti(devotion) and the notion of a personal deity.
GANDHI'S INVOCATION OF THE BHAGA VAD
SPEECHES AND WRITINGS
GITA IN HIS
Gandhi's treatment of the Gird in his writings, speeches, and correspondence
was quite formulaic and personal in quality. At times, he was addressing a
correspondent who had a specific query or a group of people right in front of
him; at other times, his audience was more indeterminate, as in the case of the
readers of his newspapers. The style that Gandhi used was one that included and
acknowledged a response of his readers and implicitly recognized their voice and
arguments in his presentation. In speaking to his audience, Gandhi assumed the
role of one giving counsel and put forth his position in the form of advice or in
the form of a statement couched in a construction that carried the weight of an
imperative statement but phrased in a compelling instead of imperative voice.
He then brought forth a range of arguments to support his position. Depending
upon the audience, they might be economic, political, spiritual. Then to finalize
his statement or position, he cited the Gird. sometimes glossing the entire text,
sometimes a verse. sometimes a distillation of what he found essential in it
(cf. CW 16: 5034, a letter in which Gandhi attempts to diffuse the anger of a
correspondent by citing Gitd 2.62-63). His invocation of the Gitii served to
underscore his argument and also to shift its grounds to a higher level of truth.
This form of argumentation likely reflected Gandhi's training as a lawyer, but
it also incorporated a techniqi~eof classical Hindu philosophical debate. through
the invocation of Slihdrr (revelation, often more specifically revelation in the
form of scripture) as irrefutable proof of the validity of the position put forward.
His advice thus took on another quality, which renegotiated the terms of the
Gar~clhi'.\Autobiography 0.v comnierlrrrt:\~0 1 1 rlw Bhagavad Gita / 53
argument. the position of his audience, and his own role. Any debate that might
follow was no longer with Gandhi but instead was repositioned as an internal
struggle with truth thus revealed and recalled. Gandhi's citation of the Gitri
served to displace his presence and role within the argument. By citing the
teachings ot' the G i t ~ ito support his position. Ganclhi left the audience to
grapple not with his views but with the teachings found in the Gird-teachings
expressed through Gandhi's interpretation of them.
In effect, Gandhi's invocation of the Gird served to redefine his role as an
advocate of the Gird's message in relation to the position or truth statement put
forward. The advice that resulted was no longer Gandhi's but rather Gandhi's
application of his understanding of the teachings revealed in the Gird. In this
way, Gandhi staked o ~ a~role
t for himself as public commentator on the Gird,
a role that perhaps was not so different from that assumed by Tilak earlier in
the independence struggle or by religious individuals who found in the Gitii a
teaching to be experienced and articulated in ensuing thoughts and actions rather
than simply understood. What was different, however. was Gandhi's interpretation of that message.
From quite early onwards, Gandhi's reading of the Gitci had overtones that
were both political and personal. His discourses on the Gird in 1926 return often
to the relationship between the continuous and tireless struggle to cultivate a
pure or siitt~liknstate (CW 33: 320) and the political struggle towards s11ut-dj
(340). Speaking about the aborted noncooperation movement of 1921. Gandhi
observes, 'We worked for self-purification in 192 1 , but afterwards strayed from
that path and so found ourselves in difficulties' (CW 32: 227). Here he is
suggesting that the campaign failed because its participants had not sufficiently
internalized and actualized the message Gandhi found so central to the Girii, a
view that Gandhi iterates throughout his commentary on the Gird. He states that
only those who have cultivated firmness of the mind are fit for involvement in
.xntydgruhrr (CW 32: 141). Political transformation must be preceded by a state
of internal noncooperation with those same impulses as found in 'the evil
system which the [British] Government represents' tCW 32: 97), or as Gandhi
had written much earlier to his nephew, 'Emancipate your own self ....In your
emancipation is the emancipation of India' (CW 10: 206-7).
This work at self-emancipation was at the core of Gandhi's efforts, as his
primary goal was not simple political independence from Britain but a deeper
and richer and even more transformative vision of s11ardj. This message had
been expressed in his Hirl~lS\\uru!j (1909), the work in which Gandhi sets out
views of self-rule that informed his political efforts for the rest of his life. In
Hirzd Swnruj, Gandhi held out the prospect of a recovery of genuine Indian
state, one that was not simply a political entity but built upon what Gandhi
54 1 Kay Koppedrayer
believed was the nearly lost legacy of his Indian heritage. This for Gandhi was a
return to a traditional India-one that Gandhi imagined to exist-built upon a
morality derived from mastery over the unruly human mind and over passions
(CW 10: 37). Appadurai observes that Gandhi's central argument was at once
philosophical and tactical. 'the only way to end British rule and to enable
Indians to acquire swcrt-clj was for them to achieve rule over themselves, self
control' ( 1 978: 1 15). As a basis of political and social order, British rule was
both an instance of violence against an Indian social order and an indication of
the violence of self-alienation experienced by Indians, especially those who had
been subject to Western institutions. For Gandhi, s~wt-fijwas more than a
question of who governed: in Judith Brown's words, Gandhi
saw SvarrG, self rule, as a quality or state of life which could only exist where
Indians followed their traditional civilization. uncorrupted by modern innovations. In his view the task for Indians was the regeneration of their own lives
and through them of India as a country (1972: 12).
By way of articulating his vision of ,s~,at-i?j,
Gandhi denounced in Hitzd Slcut-qj
all aspects of modem social and political life-industrialization,
centralization,
institutions of law, governance, education, and commerce-that he associated
with the Western world. It was not the West, per se. that he was denouncing but
what he saw as aspects of modernity which he felt had enslaved the British as
much, if not more, as Indians. No political act could bestow this .s~wt-ajupon
Indians: through a practice of the morality of self-control and duty. each Indian
would achieve a state of self-rule, 'and only on such a foundation of transformed
individuals could true swaraj be built' (Brown 1989: 67).
The purpose of ,suty7g,nlza was two-pronged: to secure freedom from British
government and, more importantly, from the 'dominance of Western education,
Western culture, and Western way of living' (CW 87: 310), matched with a
return to the purer impulses of Indian life. That return. a process of collective
purification, would begin to eliminate the social ills such as untouchability
that Gandhi readily saw around him and provide for India its real source of'
liberation. Early in the development in his understanding of the processes of
scrryfigr-nlzn, Gandhi speaks of a necessary personal transformation and describes
qualities incumbent upon participants in political struggle. He cites the Gita
and notes that humans are fallible and weak, but their struggle is to make their
practice correspond with the purity obtained by self-suffering and growth within
(CW 10: 248). for 'as the struggle progresses, pure spirits' rise: 'Some of us ar
undoubtedly not free from vindictiveness and the spirit of hatred: but the desire
in us all is to cure ourselves of hatred and enmity' (249).
Gtr~ltllli',Autobiography us cwnlne~ltr~~:\.
O I I r l z ~Bhagavad Gitii / 55
The same impulse is echoed while being further developed in 1920 when he
'purely an inward and purifying movement.' with the moral
links .crit~-dg~.trhtr.
act of resistance to a state whose governance runs counter to the welfare of its
people ( C W 16: 360). This vision of s ~ w l - q jself-mastery
,
leading to a return to a
pure and true self, was one that Gandhi held out. even up to the end of his life.
GANDHI'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Galidhi's Airtohiogr~zpl1yresonates with the same message of self-emancipation.
only this work takes even more of an inner approach. Instead of speaking out
and advising others. through an imperative voice to impress upon them the
work of what .tllar.dj really entails, Gandhi's mode of instruction is more
introspective. contemplative, and even tentative. He turns back to his own life
during a period of reconstructive work and, using himself as an example, offers
a vision of a struggle for personal and national liberation. His tone is cautionary,
perhaps even hesitant, as if to verify his actions and choices, and the outcomes
of those, against what he believed to be the only path of freedom. As an
emancipatory piece, the Autohiogmpl!\ lays out the process of gaining and then
abandoning a colonized identity, revealed through Ganclhi's tlescriptions of the
callings that led him to England, South Africa. and eventually back to India
and in his symbolic gaining and then discarding. piece-by-piece, of colonial
Gandhi struggles not only
dress. But more importantly, in the A~~tobio,qrrrpll~~,
with the meaning of s ~ v i r d jand with the possibility of the transformation of a
personal vision of . F I Y into
I ~ ~a collective vision but also with doubts about his
understanding-lived as well as conceptual--of that vision.
THE CONTEXT: WRITING THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
At the age of fifty-six Gandhi undertook the writing of his autobiography.' The
time was the mid-1920s. during an interlude between his very public involvement in the nationalist movement in the earlier part of the decade ant1 his retuni
to stitydgmlza campaigns in its latter part. Gandhi tells us that his decision to
undertake the writing of his autobiography was not entirely his own, as he had
earlier and repeatedly been pressured by followers to write out a story of his life
for others to examine. Though he had deferred from that project several times,
he finally acquiesced and decided to produce weekly installments of his life
56 / Kay Koppedrayer
The timing of his decision
story in a column in his newspaper, the Nc[l~c!ji~~~ln.
to turn to this pro.ject was significant. as the period in which he wrote out his
autobiography was a time of self-assessment, a period of personal consolidation
as well as consolidation of his vision of India. During this time. Gandhi had
publicly withdrawn from active politics, a decision prompted by a combination
of great success and yet personal failure in the campaigns he had attempted in
India.
By some accounts, Gandhi's rise to a leadership role within the nationalist
movement in 1920 was meteoric. However. as Brown ( 1972, 1989) points out,
the emergence of Gandhi as a central player within the Congress party related to
internal and external dynamics at play. Here is not the place to discuss the
internal operations of the Congress party and Gandhi's maneuvers within them.
Suffice it to say that through several negotiations drawing upon on the bases of
support that Gandhi had garnered in the years since his retuni to lndia in 19 15,
Gandhi was successful in securing Congress' endorsement in 1920 to launch a
broad-based campaign of noncooperation. That endorsement did not mean that
his form of political activism had full endorsement within the party or within
lndia as a whole.
The campaign Gandhi proposed entailed massive civil disobedience and
boycott of the Government of India and its institutions. It proposed wholesale
resignation from public sector work, the boycott of government institutions,
schools. and courts, the nonpayment of taxes, the boycott of upcoming elections,
among other actions. Gandhi's message behind these measures was clear: he was
aiming not just to protest a government but to shut it down. Gandhi had staked
high hopes on the campaign. maintaining that within a year of its implementation, lndia would see .s~'urcij.He was overly optimistic.
While the campaign had an effect on public life and served to focus public
attention on several key issues such as economic self-sufficiency, British
administration nonetheless carried on. Worse still, aspects of the movement
degenerated into such chaos and violence that Gandhi effectively had to call i t
off in February 1922, with a statement that notwithstanding the effort put into
the noncooperation movement. he found 'that the country at large has not at all
accepted the teaching of non-violence.' With regret he stated that he 'must
therefore, immediately stop the movement for civil disobedience' (CW 22: 377).
As Brown suggests ( 1989: 165), it was the localized violence that distressed
Gandhi the most. The specter of violence troubled him. but also troubling was
that his vision could be so widely misunderstood and misappropriated.
Another outcome of the chaos attendant on the noncooperation movement was
the withdrawal of support for Gandhi-style politics by the Congress party. There
were many who were disturbed by Gandhi's well-publicized and markedly anti-
Gcr~idhi'.~
Autobiography
0.5
co~nmoltci~:\.
o ~ tllc
t Bhagavad Gita / 57
modern, anti-Western stance. Not everyone shared Gandhi's view that India
should return to her traditional roots, nor was there agreement with Gandhi on
just what those traditional roots were. In the midst of this turmoil, Gandhi was
arrested, tried on the charges of 'inciting dissatisfaction towards the government'
(Brown 1989: 173). and sentenced to six years in prison. He served nearly two
of the six years but was released early due to poor health. His disillusion,
alienation from the direction the leadership the Congress party had taken, and
ill-health all contributed to his decision to withdraw from active Congress
campaigns.
More than a few of Gandhi's contemporaries referred to him as spent force in
the mid-1920s. viewing his withdrawal from active politics as evidence of
despair or resignation (Brown 1989: 176). But. as Judith Brown, Martin Green,
and other commentators on Gandhi's life have observed, though Gandhi had
removed himself from the political campaigns. this period was marked by
considerable activity. From the time of his imprisonment in 1922-24 through
I928 when he again took o n a more overtly public role. Gandhi was engaged in
reconstructive work. He actively promoted the production and use of home-spun
cloth (khdili).touring India in 1925 to promote its use. He wrote and spoke at
length about reform of the caste system and began formulating his ideas on a
constructive program for the uplift of untouchables. Another of his concerns was
the treatment and place of women in Indian society, and to this too, he devoted
much energy.
In the middle of the decade Gandhi announced a year of self-imposed retreat at
his fiSrtr~rlir,a place which Gandhi called the 'material manifestation of his
spirit ....His speeches and even his ideas showed what he claimed to be; the
ashram showed what he was' (Green 1993: 293). Overall this was a time of
reconstructive work, reflection, and meditation; in Brown's assessment, these
more seminal and productive' (1989: 176). This
quieter years were 'arg~~ably
was a time when Gandhi turned his attention to the spiritual foundations of his
political work, seeking to find in his reconstructive work his return to his
sources of religious inspiration and, indeed even in the writing of his autobiography, the tools of personal/political transformation his vision of .r~zrr~-iij
demanded.
While in prison from 1922 to 1924, he had read voraciously on a wide range
ch
in the field of comparative religion
of topics, including ~ n ~ ~material
(Tendulkar 1963, 2: 1 1 1 ). He read works 011 Hinduism, Buddhism. Christianity,
Islam, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. His time in prison had given him the
opportunity to work through Hindu textual sources in a manner he had not done
before, reading w o k s such as the Mr~l~nbl~n~rtcr
in their entirety only for the
first time. To others he returned for an ever-deepening understanding, reading
58 / Kay Koppedrayer
commentaries and even taking up the study of Sanskrit so he could read his
Gird in its original. His early release from prison changed
treasured Blzagu~~ad
his study plans, though his meditations on the religious sources he found so
essential to hib work continued. Throughout this decade his writings and talks
return to the meaning he found in the Gitli, and in 1926. the year of his retreat,
he picked up his study of the text with public meditations on each of its verses
during his morning prayer sessions. His weekly installments of his autobiography began in the same period.'
LAYERS OF MEANING IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Running ill their serialized form from November 29. 1925 through February 3,
1929. his weekly installments were a linked set of self-contained articles. Each
of the chapters served as a meditation on an episode of his life or on the various
encounters and intluences he experienced. The earlier pieces especially were
replete with moral lessons, encoding various didactic statements that not only
drew upon Gandhi's recall and commentary of his life but were also prompted in
many cases by different conversations and discussions Gandhi maintained
during the time he was producing the weekly columns. A close reading of
Gandhi's correspondence of the same period reveals how often questions or
concerns posed to him influenced the direction his writing took.
Gandhi tells us that he purposely sought to make his message accessible to
anyone by writing in simple, straightforward prose, by including only that
material which 'can be comprehended as much by children as by older people'
(CW 39: 3 ) . While a close examination of the material in the work reveals
multilayered writing that contains a complexity of interrelations between moral
responsibilities. spiritual growth, and social praxis, the apparent sinlplicity
of his writing masks the density of the moral and political ethics behilid his
narration of his life events. Parekh has observed that at first glance, the autobiographical material Gandhi presents appears deeply puzzling, as the understood
purpose of an autobiography-a preoccupation with the self, or, as Parekh puts
it. 'autobiography necessarily affirms, confirms and reinforces the self' (1986:
15)-seems to run counter to Gandhi's purposes. As Parekh ( 1986: 19-2 1 ) goes
on to point out, the confusion is one of form. not content: in writing his autobiography, Gandhi drew upon the spiritual impulses of the Hindu religious
tradition as he knew it while reinterpreting and reworking some of the orientations of that material.
Parekh identifies those impi~lses as a generalized Ved3ntic orientation of
G n ~ ~ d l ~Autobiography
i'.s
0.5
co~jitnoltrrr:\011 tlzr Bhagavad GitlT / 59
aeeking awareness of Brahman. I suggest that they were even more focused than
that, derived from Gandhi's privileging of not just the Girg as the seminal text
of his Hinduism but of hia view of the essential message it contained. The
spiritual impulses that motivated Gandhi were those derived from his sense of
the importance of the Gird's teachings that grew out of his readings and
rereadings of the text, starting with his introduction to it when he was a young
student in London. In effect, I suggest that Gandhi's A l ~ t o h i o g ~ ~ iwritten
l ~ h ~ , at
a tinie when he was grappling with the ramifications of his personal and public
work, is an attempt to convey both to himself and to others a sense of how
those teachings could be lived out.
Gandhi speaks of his autobiography as offering such examples. Right at the
outset of his project. Candhi declares that his purpose is not 'to attempt a real
autobiography' (CW 39: 2). a statement that makes more sense once Gandhi
clarifies his intentions. His next sentence elaborates, 'I simply want to tell the
story of my numerous experiments with truth' (CLV 39: 3). Then, over the next
several paragraphs, Gandhi moves into a meditative mode. comparing his public
work with his spiritual quest, and linking the two, and then moving into further
reflections on what he understands truth to be. This, he muses, he has come to
glimpse in praxis. in experience, in social relations, thought, word. and deed
(CW 39: 3-5), and he frames his entire life in the quest of that experience: 'my
life consists of nothing but those experiments' (3).
The English version of the text muffles some of the contrasts at play in these
paragraphs. Not between public and private or political activity and spiritual
experiences. but between 'real autobiography' and 'story [that] will take the
shape of an autobiography' (CW 39: 2, 3). As Parekh (1989: 259) points out. in
the original Gujarati, Candhi is contrasting ji\urlvrrtarlfa (description of an
individual's life) with cltri~iikiitlzti(story of a soul, or story of a soul's journey ),
with the contrast suggesting the difference between a factual recitation of past
life events and an account which discerns the religious progress or spiritual
development found in that life, the 'self-realization,' the quest 'to see God f~
to face, to attain rnokshn' that Gandhi identifies (CCV 39: 3).
He makes it clear with these opening paragraphs that he intends the narrative
of his life to be structured around a sort of pilgrim's progress, taking the form
of a story of ongoing development. This development-embedded in a process
of being and becoming, the process that Gandhi identifies as truth-reflects a
movement from a less developetl to a more developed state. I t is a process of
self-purification, entailing the material and spiritual transforniation of himself.
Further, Gandhi insisted that his journey, his 'experiments with truth,' were
public and, in Parekh's words, 'could be undertaken by all ...Ias] the truths he
discovered could be stated in propositional and inter-sub.jectively discussible
60 / Kay Koppedrayer
terms' and that they were 'not authoritative but only illustrative' (1986: 16).
his weekly reflections, especially in the
If one looks at how Gandhi struct~~red
earlier chapters. certain salient features emerge. First, from the perspective of his
retreat into a monkish existence at his d.Cmmcr, Gandhi looks back upon his life
as a child, his student years in London, and even his time in South Africa a$
almost reminiscent of past selves. They are linked to his present self but distant
from it. They are, in effect, selves he had to progress through to get to where he
is today. As Parekh observes, Gandhi's Azttohiogl~rl~hy
is thus really 'a story of
how. ..[he] evolved into a Mahatma' (1986: 27). S. Patel (198 1 : 68) describes
the work as a depiction of Gandhi's spiritual journey. In this depiction of a
spiritual journey, Gandhi formulates the various episodes of his life into
examples illustrative of a struggle for the attainment of the state of sthitcrpr-qjria,
as extolled in his understanding of the Gita.
His presentation of these past states centers on the various passions he had to
~t
as about the various attachovercome. He is not so much writing a b o ~ himself
ments. here called passions, that make up his self. Gandhi returns repeatedly to
his obstructing passions:
In the march towards truth, anger, selfishness, hatred, etc., naturally give way,
for otherwise truth would be impossible to attain. A man who is swayed by
passions may have good enough intentions. may be truthful in word, but he
will never find the truth (CW 39: 276).
Echoing one of his beloved passages of the Bhagcr~ladGitd, he continues, 'A
successful search for truth means complete deliverance from the dual throng such
as of love and hate, happiness and misery.' Gandhi's presentation of himself is
structured around an ongoing and perhaps ultimately unachievable attainment of
self-purification.
Here, a characteristic of Gandhi's Autohiogrcrpl~j-that alternately puzzles or
frustrates readers becomes more understandable. What I am referring to is
Gandhi's detailed discussions of his diet, dress, and sexual behaviors. These
discussions center around control of the senses working towards an end of
eliminating or at least restraining the passions. Gandhi's discussion of his palate
often focuses on what he views as impediments. Stimulants such as coffee or tea
are identified; so also is milk, but here. the question of self-restraint highlights
the struggles Gandhi faced in moments of weakness and ill-health. Restraint of
the palate is complemented with his gradual renunciation of a middle-class
barrister's lifestyle (CW 39: 170-7 1). Pride in personal dress is also identified
and eliminated. Gandhi even extends his extolling of nonacquisitiveness to his
wife and her owning of jewelry (CW 39: 2 12).
Garzdhi'c Autobiography
LIT C . O I ~ ~ I I ~ ~ I I I (0I 1I ;1Y111~~
Bhagavad
Gita / 61
Gandhi's discussions of D r u l z ~ ~ ~ ~ r t (restraint
o r ~ ~ r r of sexual desire). dietary
control. the cultivation of nonacquisitiveness, and other means of self-control
emerge early in the Autohiogr-ciphy. at about the same time that Gandhi was
engaged i n his weekly discourses on the Bhagcr~lacl G i t a . Self-control is a
dominant theme in those discourses ant1 that commentary fincls echoes in
Gandhi's weekly autobiographical self-retlections. In one chapter, he talks about
the dietary experiments he undertook with Hermann Kallenbach during his
South African years:
We discussed our changes in food and derived more pleasure from the new
diet than from the old. Talk of this nature sounded quite pleasant in those
days, and did not strike me as at all improper. Experience has taught me,
however, that i t was wrong to have dwelt upon the relish of food. One should
eat not in order to please the palate, but just to keep the body going. When
each organ of sense subserves the body and through the body the soul, its
special relish disappears, and then alone does i t begin to function in the way
nature intended it to do (CW 39: 257).
Gandhi's confessions especially address what he, taking his cues from his
readings of the Blzaga~jndGird. categorizes as those human passions which lead
one away from spiritual growth. Greed. acquisitiveness. pride, and especially
lust are included in this list. As Appadurai observes, 'Gandhi argued that the
primary means suggested by the Gita for achieving the ideal state of detachment, consisted in a stilling of the passions, especially those of anger, hatred,
and desire' (1978: 1 19). In the Alctobiogr-nphy. Gandhi spares no details in
recounting struggles with what he calls his carnal desire. In his youth, even
at the moment of his father's death (CM' 39: 30), during his time as a student
~ even after his vow of Dmhmacaryr (169), he struggles.
in London ( 6 3 and
was a matter of ever-increasing joy,' he
'But if [the vow of br-irhti~trccrr~\~~
writes:
Let no one believe that it was an easy thing for me. Even when I am past
fifty-six years, I realize how hard a thing i t is. Every day 1 realize more and
more that it is like walking on the sword's edge, and I see every moment the
necessity for eternal vigilance (CW 39: 169).
Vigilance, effort, discipline, and the necessity of binding action with vows are
courses of action that Gandhi explains he used. He also offers the use of prayer
as a source of guidance. In a commentary on how he was 'saved' from a brothel,
Gandhi cites prayer, 'combined with the utmost' humility" as 'an unfailing
62 / Kay Koppedrayer
means of cleansing the heart of passions,' echoing what he had said elsewhere
about the necessity of restraint matched with revelation ( C W 30: 64). In a letter
to a close associate ( C W 28: 78-79), Gandhi speaks about celibacy in the
context of restraint but goes on to add that a restricted diet alone will not
subdue one's sex life and allied passions. Instead, on the authority of the Gir~i,
'absolute cessation of desire comes only after revelation of the Supreme' (CW
28: 79).
Further. in the 1926-27 chapters. Gandhi develops the idea of vow ( ~ ~ m ras
a)
a correlate of self-control, showing how the influences of Jaina teachings and his
memory of his mother's discipline also figured into his interpretation of the
Gila. At times the act of self-restraint through active self-control is highly
formalized, ah in the vow of hr~ilzr~iaca~:\.a:
in other instances i t is less so. as in
his experiments with diet. In still other situations, it is barely discernible, as in
his commentary o n his commitment to self-restraint in his resolution of the
Dada Abdullah case through arbitration ( C W 39: 109-1 I ).
Gandhi gives prominence to the theme of I1,zrrcr in his opening chapter where
he remarks upon the lasting inipression his mother's practice of self-restraint had
on him. This discussion serves several functions: to underscore the cultural and
familial roots of the practice of self-restraint, to identify self-restraint as an act of
strength gained through self-control. and to emphasize self-restraint-what
Gandhi found to be the central message of the Gitci-as the basis for individual
as well as national si,araj, particularly as pledges or vows of self-restraint were
central to Gandhi's develop~nentand application of the political and social
instrument of sarydgrzrlzcr. In this way, though the emphasis appears to be on
personal self-development. the ramifications of that development extended far
into the political field.
In his self-presentation, Gandhi continually presents himself as a human
capable of transgressions: he offers a long litany of personal weaknesses. In his
childhood, he is fearful and timid, seduced by the idea of an immediate gaining
of strength through meat-eating. dishonest, and easily swayed by others' ideas
(CW 39: 21. 23). He confesses that in moments of physical weakness and
sickness he even broke or manipulated his own vows, a weakness he continues
to lament. In recounting how he took goat's milk during an illness, notwithstanding a dietary vow proscribing milk. Gandhi speaks of succumbing to what
he calls his desire to continue to carry on, a decision that still troubled him:
But my use of goat's milk today troubles me not from the view-point of
dietetic ahimsa so much as from that of truth, being no less than in breach of
pledge. It seems to me that I understand the ideal of truth better than that of
ahimsa, and my experience tells me that, if I let go my hold of truth, I shall
Gatzrlhi'c Autobiography
(1.5
corn111011trrt:v
or1 the Bhagavad Git3 / 63
never be able to solve the riddle of ahimsa. The ideal of truth requires that
vows taken s l i o ~ ~ lbe
d fulfilled in the spirit as well as in the letter. In the
present case I killed the spirit-the soul of my vow-by adhering to its outer
form only, and that is what galls me. But in spite of this clear knowledge I
cannot see niy way straight before me. In other words, perhaps, I have not the
courage to follow the straight course. Both at bottom mean one and the same
thing, for doubt is invariably the result of want or weakness of faith (CW 39:
362).
An open meditation on his struggle to satisfy what he established as dual
duties: to serve truth and to practice nhit!~sd,this passage opens out to others
who may themselves be experiencing their own sense of competing demands.
Using himself as an example, Gandhi is revealing the challenges faced in the
struggle for self-purification. Lurking underneath Gandhi's dilemma is a will to
live to continue his commitment to finding truth in social relations, to 'take up
the satyagraha fight.' but in this open meditation, Gandhi exposes his very real
fears about his own capacity for duplicity (CW 39: 361, 362). That exposure
draws others into the meditation on duty and helps, through a sense of
'collaborative expectancy' (Burke 1969: 5 8 ) , shape how they work through
similar questions.
In the same way, this exposure of personal struggle addresses the concern
Gandhi's associate voiced at the very beginning of Gandhi's undertaking of an
autobiography. Gandhi's associate had queried how Gandhi would present his
understanding of his principles and asked: ' I s it not likely that the men who
shape their conduct on the authority of your word, spoken or written, may be
misled?' (CW 39: 2). By repositioning the reader in passages such as the one
quoted above, Gandhi shifts the place of authority from prescription/proscription
to an internalized and ongoing awakening of self-governance.
shift. Similar to those discourse shifts
In so doing Gandhi effects a disco~~rse
invoked when he appealed to the authority of the Gitfi in his pi~blictalks. Gandhi
prompts the listener or reader to turn inwards and discern for oneself the right
course of action. The voice of authority is no longer stemming from Gandhi, but
one developing and revealed from within. not withstanding Gandhi's prodding
hand guiding the development of that internal voice. Authority is revealed
through one's struggle to know it: .vlwtfij emerges through that struggle and the
actions that follow; the necessary transformation is effected when the teachings
of restraint and purification are actualized. Gandhi offers his autobiography both
as a commentary of how he applied the teachings of the Gitit in struggles and as
an emancipatory piece opening for others the possibilities of similar spiritual
journeys.
64 / Kay Koppedrayer
GANDHI'S LIFE TO BE INTERPRETED
AGAINST THE BHAGAVAD G ~ T A
Gandhi himself suggests that his retlections on his life need to be read against
his reading of the Gitfi. He does this in several statements, one of which merits
close attention. This statement is found in the piece that serves as the introduction to the work known by the title, A~ltr.strkti!,ogcr,that draws together Gandhi's
Gujarati translation of the Gitli along with notes on selected verses (CW 41:
90-1 01 : Bakker 1993: 26-35: Desai 195 I : 125-34).
Gandhi had begun the translation of the Gita while he was in prison in 1923.
but appendicitis and early release left that work unfinished. In 1926 Gandhi
began his public discourses on the text, and from the end of February of that
year through November, Gandhi presented one or two verses of the Gitli, through
his own translation, and then offered commentary on these verses. Gandhi's
secretary, Mahadev Desai, and another resident of the iis'rzliiirr. Punjabhai
Hirachand. took notes during Gandhi's talks. These notes were edited and
later publishecl, like much of Gandhi's work, in a single volume known as
Gaildhijiizu G i t t r s i k . ~ edited
~ ~ ~ . by Narahari Parikh in 1955 (CW 32: 95), and
also reproduced in fl~llin English in volume 32 of Gandhi's Collectcd ~ ' o r k . ~ .
While proceeding through a verse-by-verse discussion, Gandhi's published 1926
discourses do not provide a verse-by-verse translation. Instead translations of
selected verses are included. Internal evidence (CW 32: 98, 41: 93) suggests that
Gandhi was not satisfied with his translation. Among others, Desai worked with
Gandhi as he undertook the challenge of rendering the Gitii into Gujarati (CW
41: 93).
Several separate publications of Gandhi's translation of the Gitti were released,
the first in Gujarati on March 12, 1930 (CW 4 1 : 90: Patel 198 I: 86). the day of
commencement of Gandhi's famous Salt March, followed by translations into
Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, and English. Volume 41 of the Collected works
(101-33) reproduces in English some of the translation along with Gandhi's
comments on those verses. The entire translation is not found in this volume:
only those verses which were commented on or discussed by Gandhi are
included. As evinced by the notes that accompany the material (CW 41: 101-33:
Desai 195 1 : 122-24), Desai helped polish Gandhi's presentation.
A complete English translation of Gandhi's Gu.jarati translation appears as
part of the larger work, The go.~pelc?fselfle.s.s crctioil or the Gittr accorclir~gto
Gandhi, published posthumously by Desai in 1946. This work, undertaken
by Desai while he was incarcerated in 1933-34, aggregates his and Gandhi's
readings of the Grid. I t opens with Desai's scholarly forays into the date and
Gn~irl/ii'.rAutobiography
0,scoinilleiltol:\ oil
t h Bhagavad
~
Gita 1 65
authorship of the text, followetl by a lengthy interpretative analysis of its
contents (3-121 ). The latter two thirds of the work present Gandhi'a translation
and comments, enhanced with further annotations by Desai ( 125-385). Close
remling ot'Desai's analysis of the text against Gandhi's show significant differences of interpretation, a topic for another paper.
In adtlition to the Gaiidhijiilrr Gitasikscrii (the transcription of Gandhi's 1926
discourses) and Ailcrserktiyoga (Gandhi's translation of the Gitii along with notes
on selected verses), a third work, known as the Gitahoclh, is available (Patel
198 I : 86). The Gitcrhodh is a collection of letters on the Gitci written by Gandhi
while in the Yeravda Prison in 1930 and 1932. These, translated into English
by Val.ji Desai, appear in the Collect~dr~1orX.s.volume 49 ( 1 11-49), and i n a
separate volume under the title disc our.^^.^ or1 tlre Gitci.
The piece of writing 1 wish to turn to is Gandhi's I929 introduction to his
translation of the Gitd, a statement which summarizes what he held at that
time to be the message of the Gitd (CW 41 : 90-101: Desai 1951: 125-34).
Originally written in Gandhi's native Gujarati. Aiz~r.rrrktij'ogcr:Tlle i~l~s.~er,qe
of
the Gird has been printed and reprinted in several translations, including an
English translation done by Gandhi himself to accompany his serialization
of his version of the Gitti in Yolttig Inclicr in the 1930s. The very scope of
dissemination of this work, as well as his other work on the Gitii, indicates the
extent to which he sought to communicate his message.
Though short, just over ten printed pages of text, the statement is dense with
layers of meaning. Partly apologetic, partly playful, partly didactic, Gandhi's
remarks address his role as translator and commentator on the Gitti as well as
his interpretation of the text. In the first part of the piece Gandhi explains the
reasons why he undertook a translation and what he identifies as its purpose: in
the second pan, Gandhi summarizes what he finds as the Gitii's message,
reiterating the vision of realization, cr/zii!~sd.and renunciation found in his earlier
talks and writings on the Gitii.
His heading to this piece, Aila.~aktij~ogcr:
Tlle tilessage c?f' the GitcT, is a play
on words that serves to locate him in a larger commentarial tradition but at the
same time distinguishes his reading of the G i t ~ ifrom earlier ones. Describing
explanation of the
a discipline (yoga) which entails seltless action-Gandhi's
term cultricrkti-the heading recalls Tilak's expression of kui.i~lcrjtoga,which in
turn took up readings by Svami VivekInanda and others. Gandhi's expression
however is a corrective of Tilak's, and by alluding to and then replacing the one
expression with another, Gandhi offers a rejection of Tilak's espousal of any
means, including the use of violence, to justify the gain of home rule." With
this, Gandhi reminds his readers that he is offering a very different kind of
vision.
66 / Kay Koppedrayer
In the several paragraphs that begin the piece, Gandhi offers several reasons to
explain why he took i t upon himself to produce a translation of the Gitfi. These
explanations take in several spheres of accountability and responsibility: to
himself. to other translators and commentators on the Gitli, to his followers and
would-be followers, to the text itself and the spiritual tradition from which i t
came. and to the message he reads in it. 'The statements are interwoven, but
there is an apparent ranking in the way Gandhi introduces and treats the various
explanations and statements of accountability he provides.
He opens with a telling remark that juxtaposes his work on the Girfi and his
study of his life (CIV 41 : 90). He frames his purpose in the context of service.
echoing the argument that led him to agree to produce his autobiographical
reflections. Gandhi observes that just as he was 'acted upon by the affection of
co-workers' to undertake his Stor-! c!f'~il!.c,.q7rriwlc,nt,r br-itlz trutlz, so in the same
his rendering of the Gitn. Gandhi displaces himself ancl his
way he ~~ndertook
own purpose from his endeavor: even his choice of words-his sentence locates
the agency of his actions in the desire or needs (it is unclear which) of his coworkers-finds the source of his activity in others. His relational position with
others and his ensuing response was what was 'acted up.' At the sanie time, this
opening statement provides a mimesis of Gandhi's exegetical stance. Elsewhere
in this piece and elsewhere in his discourses on the Gitli, Gandhi finds a central
message of the Gitli to be displacement of selfish urges through the iteration of
a linkage with others in service and love. Both love and service were, for
Gandhi. positive expressions of mlzir!isfi,the absence of violence.
Continuing with a construction that replicates much of the structure of the
introduction to his autobiography, Gandhi then reproduces the conversation that
laid the ground for his translation. The request, as Gandhi recalls it, turned upon
a statement of need which carries with it more than a hint of challenge. His coworkers reminded him that they would be able to appreciate Gandhi's meaning
of the message of the Gita only when they were able to study a translation of
the whole text. As Gandhi recalls, Svami Anand who voiced the request added
to it the observation that he did 'not think it was just on IGandhi's] part to
deduce alzitnsa etc. from stray verses' ( C W 41: 90-91). A playful irony moves
through this recall: Gandhi's authority on the Gird is questioned, but with that
is also the question of what is privileged. knowledge that comes through a
reading of a text or another form of knowledge altogether? What is the nature of
scriptural authority?
Right at the end of the first section (CW 41: 92), Gandhi takes up this
question when he speaks of his qualifications as a translator and interpreter of
the Gitii. Speaking of other readings and interpretations of the Gitii, Gandhi
observes that he does not intend to disparage other renderings. He suggests his
G ~ l l d / ? iAutobiography
'~
a.r c'o~~r~~rorrti~:\.
011 rlic Bhagavad Gita / 67
is ditterent. by virtue of the way he transformed his own life into a commentary
o n the Gitfi. in the way that he sought to 'reduce to practice the teaching of the
Grttr a\ [he] understood it' ( C W 41: 91 ). a claim that he reiterates even more
forcetully in another paragraph:
I am not aware of lany17 claim made by the translators of enforcing their
meaning of the Gitfi in their own lives. At the back of my reading,' there is
the claim of an endeavor to enforce the meaning in my own conduct for an
unbroken period of forty3ears. For this reason, I do indeecl harbour the wish
that all Gujarati men or women'" wishing to shape their conduct according to
their faith should digest and derive strength from the translation here
presented ( C W 4 1 : 92).
In effect a commentary on a commentary, in this statement Gandhi is telling us
that he sees no discontinuity between translation and the readinglunderstanding
of a text. Indeed, he is stating that to be considered meritorious, any translation
lrlust be supported by lived experience: the text is realized only when i t is
translated into active knowledge. Scriptural authority is what is revealed when a
text is known in this way. Gandhi then reiterates what he had observed years
earlier about the text, that the author of the Gita 'did not write i t to establish
that doctrine.' Instead, in Gandhi's view, its purpose lay in 'showing the most
excellent way to attain self-realization'" ( C W 41 : 94). Only when one embarked
upon that path could one's interpretation be valid or authoritative. Gandtii's
understanding of the message of the text demanded certain qualifications on the
part of an interpreter. The basis of that qualification was spiritual discipline:
discipline in turn was a necessary prerequisite for interpretation. In putting forth
this necessity, Gandhi manages to relate his reading-his
translation of the
text-to his life history. His repeated claim of 'ti~rtyyears unremitting endeavour fully to entime the teaching of the Gitci in [his] own life' ( C W 41: 100)
establishes his qualification to interpret and convey that teaching to others; his
presentation of the 'unremitting endeavour' of his life-his experiments with
truth-in
his autobiography provides a commentary on that teaching and its
transmission.
SALT MARCH
Gandhi's Gujarati translation of the Gita was released in a single volume on
March 12, 1930, a date of no small significance. On this day Gandhi began
68 / Kay Koppedrayer
his now famous Salt March, an act that drew upon religious and political
symbolism to recommence the nonviolent movement against the British R5j.
Gandhi had been drawn our of self-imposed retreat and back into all-Indian
Congress politics i n 1928. Several factors had contributed to his return to the
public political arena. Katherine Mayo's Morhrl- lrzdiu had been published in
1927. A catalog~leof social horrors attributed to Hindu practices, the work was
aimed, in the words of one commentator, 'at discrediting and slandering both
the country and ...Gandhi' (Weber 1997: 53). Within a month of its release. i t
had gone through twenty-seven editions and had become one of the most widely
read books about India outside of the subcontinent. The Simon Commission
had been touring India with the proposal that the country be granted Dominion
Status within the British Empire. The Congress party gave the call to boycott
the political reforms the commission proposed but withour offering clear ideas
of what to do next: lacking was a vision of seeing India free not only of the
British but also from the blemishes and injustices pointed out in Mayo's work
(Weber 1997: 54). As well, the country showed evidence of growing fissures
among the different communities-Hindu,
Muslim and others-in
India, a
disunity troubling to Gandhi's ideal of a unifietl India.
This situation. and perhaps the inner work he had accomplished during his
interlude of restorative work in the middle part of the decade, prompted him to
retuni to the larger political arena. After much consideration of how to enact the
next stage of activism. Gandhi chose the synlbolism of protesting the government by leading a pilgrimage to the shores of the Arabian Sea. There he and his
followers could defy the government with the making and selling of salt, a
gesture that protested the monopoly of the British state over a commodity basic
to human life while at the same time articulating an image of self-determination.
His intention was to recommence the political struggle for self-rule with an
In the Salt March
act that embodied the meaning of his struggle for s~~al-dj.
Gandhi led a carefully chosen band of satyiiglnliis from his d.ircirna at Sabamiati
to Dandi on the coast where they defied British law by making and offering for
sale contraband salt (CW 43: 3 ( H 8 ) . Frarned as a religious undertaking, a
pilgrimage toward sval-dij, the march saw <;andhi Iiterally leading his followers
into a renewed campaign of mass civil disobedience.
The march was cloaked with a religious aura. In a talk to his band of
.sc~tycigmllis,Gandhi called their undertaking a 'sacred pilgrimage,' a 'sacrificial
offering' (CW 43: 96, 97). Stopping in villages along its 740-mile stretch,
Gandhi spoke about the changed attitudes which would enable true .v~ar-dijand
expounded upon the duty of disobedieiice to a corrupt state (Brown 1989: 247).
A recurrent theme in his messages was that of purification at both the collective
and personal levels, that 'self-examination and self-purification are essentials'
Guildlzi '.\ Autobiography a s cornrnerztcrr~\~
or1 the Bhagavad Gitii 1 69
they could not d o without. He spoke of the 'rigorous self-discipline' they undertook as generating in them 'a force which will enable' them to retain what they
had won (CW43: 97). The marchers who accompanied Gandhi were individually
selected for their discipline and spiritual purity (Weber 1997: 106). They were
chosen from among the residents of Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram, where the
daily evening prayers always began with a recitation of the last nineteen verses
of the second chapter of the Girr?. the verses that present the qualities of the
stlzitcrprqjrici, the state incumbent upon the .scr!\,figt-crhis(Chatterjee 1983: 147).
Those carefully chosen sar\,clgr-cilzis carried copies of the newly released
compilation of Gandhi's translation and discourses on the Girci. By marking the
commencement of that occasion with the release of a religious text, Gandhi was
drawing attention not only to the spiritual dimension of the march and how it
underlay for him any i~nderstandingof .s\.trrr?jbut also his belief in the centrality
of the teaching of the G i t ~ ito the process of .s\,ar.uj. An auspicious occasion
befitting the public distribution of a religious text, the Salt March also signaled
the promise of the freedom Gandhi sought. The timing of the release of his text
of the Grrfi tied his act, its stated intentions together with his understanding of
the teachings of the Gir~i.He marked his return to a public campaign of civil
disobedience with the !fitr.r? (pilgrimage to s\dr-c!i) and the Gitr?, and as he had
done elsewhere, he used his actions and those of his well-chosen army of
sar.vfigrrrhis as lived examples of his understanding of the Gitfi's teachings. The
gesture of releasing the text, and the march itself, retlexively express Gandhi's
articulation and enactment of his understanding of the text in the struggle for
personal and political emancipation.
CONCLUSlON
Appadurai observes that 'a large part of Gandhi's energy and imagination was
dedicated to the dramatization and dissemination' ( 1978: 122) of his beliefs in
the transformation that resulted when one cultivated self-control with the aim of
self-purification. Appadurai calls Gandhi a 'tireless pedagogue and publicist'
(1978: 122) who, in his speeches, action, and writings, sought to instill in his
Indian audience an awareness of their common cultural heritage. In this essay, 1
echo Appadurai's observations by suggesting that Gandhi even used his own life
story to carry his message. I suggest that his autobiography is more than just a
didactic text retlecting upon his struggles to come closer to an understanding of
truth: rather, it is a text which establishes the conditions that in Gandhi's view
were necessary for slwnii. Those conditions demanded a process of self-trans-
70 / Kay Koppedrayer
formation which Gandhi saw as essential to the liberation of India and Indians
from British rule and from those forces. internal as well as external, that
prevented realization of that liberation.
For (;andhi, the heritage he sought to recover in his vision of s~wrfijwas best
expressed in the teachings which helped awaken the potential for personal and
collective spiritual growth. It was a legacy that had been threatened both by the
many changes brought about by the British presence in India and by the loss of
an understanding of what s~vzt-cqactually was. Much of Gandhi's mission
sought to bring about a return to that potential. In Gandhi's view, the Blzcrga~~mci
Gitii contained the finest distillation of the means of recovering that potential,
and he retunled to that text repeatedly for his own inspiration and for guidance
in how to instill an understanding of that message in others. He especially
turned to the Gitci during those periods when he was led to assess and reappraise
his work. The mid-1920s. the time in which he produced his autobiography,
was one such period. It was also a time when Gandhi turned to Gitfi for renewed
appreciation of the teachings it offered. In these years he continued to develop
his understanding of the inner work his view of .slurcij demanded.
In this study, I argue that the public retlections Gandhi offered on his life
in his autobiography were informed by his view of what that inner work
entailed, and his understanding of that inner work, a self-transformation. was.
in turn, derived from his meditations upon the Gitii. Moreover, I suggest
that Ganclhi's Stot:~of t r r ~crperirneiits ~ , i t l ltruth was more than just a telling
or retelling of his life: rather, his account of his own struggles with selftransformation could serve to guide others in their own efforts. In effect, I
suggest that Gandhi's Azltobiogrcrl~hj~
is a commentary, Gandhian-style, on the
Bhrrga \lad Gitii.
Notes
I . Put into law on March 18, 1919. the Rowlatt Rills, as they were popularly
known, were based on the 1918 recommendations to the Imperial Legislative
Council of the Sedition Committee chaired by Justice Rowlatt. The committee
was appointed to report on seditions and conspiracies in operation in India and
propose methods to deal with them. Justice Rowlatt's committee recommended
that the government have emergency powers to deal with any area officially
proclaimed subversive and where necessary to suspend civil liberties. tncluded
in the act were provisions to restrict political activities and places of residence:
to ban the circulation of certain publications labeled as seditious: to allow for
the arrest of suspected individuals without a warrant; to detain them without
G ~ r r l d l ~Autobiography
i'~
o.v corriiricrltar:\-or1 tl7e Bhagavad GitS / 7 1
trial for up to two years: and to allow for the trial of crimes deemed to be
seditious by special courts without juries and irr ctrrlicpi-trif necessary and
without a chance for the defense to see or cross-examine the witnesses. Gandhi's
1909 Hiud S~rvzr-~rj
was included in the schedule of seditious literature.
Gandhi's first all-India sat!.figr.nha campaign was in protest of the Rowlatt
Bills. Events that were set in motion by this campaign resulted in the horrific
specter of a British commander, Brigadier R. E. H. Dyer, ordering his troops to
fire at point-blank range on a gathering of some ten thousand men. women. and
children, killing 379 persons and wounding 1,137 others. That took place on
April 19, 19 19. at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. Gandhi later writes (1928) in
campaign in protest
his autobiography that his decision to call for a sczt~dgr-(rll~r
of the government's suspension of civil liberties was a 'Himalayan miscalculation' because he hat1 'called on people to launch upon civil disobedience before
they had thus qualified themselves for it' (CW 39: 374).
2. The Collected 117or.k.c(28) reproduces the same piece, translated from
GLI-jarati,published in Ntr~nji~~trn.
The wording is a little different.
3. In this section and the next, I draw upon material 1 have published
elsewhere (Koppedrayer 2000) o n the construction of Gandhi's Arrtohiogi-crl>l~\~.
4. Prior to starting on his autobiographical retlections, Gandhi wrote an
iri So~lth
account of his years in South Africa, now available as S~rt\~trgr.nhcr
Afi-ircr. Like Tlze stor\, of rrz! e.rporirnerlts ~xitlz truth, this work was originally
written as a series of self-contained articles publishecl weekly in the Ntr~rqjivarr
and then translated into English for publication in Yorlng Irldicr. Sat\-agmha it1
Solrtlz Africtr is much less introspective than the Autobiogmphy. Green calls this
work 'nationalistic hagiography' (1993: 3 15).
5. The Gujarati reads, 'But to deserve such grace, one must have perfect
humility' (CW 39: 482. T10).
6. Gandhi was quite aware of Tilak's Gitarzrl~~r.r,vo.
as he made a study of that
work while at the Yeravda Prison. Though not the sole impetus behind his
translation, Gandhi's reading of the work may well have contributed to his
decision to present his own statement on the Girl?. Parekh, in 'Dialogue with
the terrorists' (1989: 165-71), presents a compelling argument that Gandhi's
recourse to the discussio~ithat the mention of violence in the Gird was allegorical was a response to a growing number of nationalists who based their advocacy
of violent means to overthrow of the British government in lndia on their
readings of the Gird. Gandhi's choice of expressions and phrasing, including his
choice of title. Arltr.rtrktij.ogn,juxtaposed his work against Tilak's. The presentation of a counterargument to Tilak's had precedents. Gandhi's much earlier Hind
S~larcrjwas a dialectical response to many of the components of Tilak's views
not only of a self-governing lndia but also on the nature of that self-governance
72 / Kay Koppedrayer
and how to obtain it. Produced in white heat in 1909 after his failed attempt to
secure rights of citizenship for Indians in the newly Federated Llnion of South
a vision of self-rule that Gandhi promoted
African States. this work artic~~lated
for the rest of his life, the vision that anticipates what he says about self-control
and self-realization in his autobiography. The title of this work, Hiircl S\i,ui.nj,
reworked even as it appropriated Tilak's well-known declaration that .sivr@j was
his birthright.
7. The text published by Desai (195 1 ) and that which appears in the Collected
n,ar-k.5 (41: 92) has 'the.' but a note (footnote 6 ) indicates that the original
manuscript had 'any' in place of 'the.'
8. The original has 'rendering' (CW 41 : 92n7).
9. The original has '38' (CW 41 : 92nX).
10. The original has 'every Gujarati man or woman' (CW 4 1 : 92n9).
I I. The original has 'to show the most excellent way of attaining self
realization' (CW 4 1 : 94n9).
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KAY KOPPEDKAYER is Absistant Professor of Religion and Culture at
Wilfrid 1,aurier University. Waterloo, Canada.