Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on

October 2, 1869.
He was the son of Karamchand Gandhi
In May 1883, at the age of 13, Gandhi was
married to Kasturba Makhanji
On 1888, Gandhi went to University College
London to study law and train as a barrister.
 God and Truth
Gandhis Philosophy
His theistic beliefs were of Vaisnava type
Vaisnavas in India are theists
They accept the authority of Vedas and
Upanishads
But they are not inclined to accept the advaitic
trend of thought and belief
Sankara emphasized the reality of Nirguna
Brahman
 the world which appears to looked real and illusion
created by illusion
The Vaisnava thinkers accept the reality of the
world
Believe in God as creator and preserver of this world
According to Sankara reality is an attribute-less,
indeterminate Brahman
And salvation consists in the knowledge of this
reality
Reality being Nirguna cannot be approach in the
devotional manner
 salvation cannot be approached in the devotional manner
the only way for salvation is the way of knowledge
Vaisnava thinkers conceived God in a theistic
manner
God becomes a personal God
God has to felt and realized
the way of feeling and devotion is the only way for
salvation
For Gandhi God is needed not merely satisfaction
of reason but also for providing strength and solace
 A faith in God must enable an individual to be in
peace with the world
As he says
He is no God who merely satisfies the intellect, if He
ever does. God to be God, must rule the heart and
transform it.
This is possible only when an inter-personal
relationship is possible
Only when God is conceived as person
He was influenced by the Bhakti-cult
He was helped in arriving at this notion of God by his
studies of the Bible and the Quran
 Truth is an impersonal principle
God is conceived by Gandhi is a person
How can the two be identified?
For Gandhi God is Truth
Firstly this assertions is the result of a search for a name
Or a category for the universal reality , that is God
Secondly, God is ascribed as Truth because God alone is
real
Truth is not an attribute of God
But God is truth
Truth is derived from the word sat and sat manse
Is
 By calling God Truth what is being asserted is that
God alone is
But later he says Truth is God
According to him there is nothing peculiar in shifting
the emphasis from God is Truth to Truth is God
one reason for this change is that the word truth is not
an ambiguous as the word God
God may be pantheistic, theistic, polytheistic
But, the word Truth is always clear in its significance.
 Secondly it is possible to rationally doubt, even to
deny the existence of God
But it is self-contradictory to attempt to deny Truth
Reason can raise argument against the possibility of
Gods existence
But reason cannot reject truth
Truth provides a common platform to be both theist
and the atheist
Truth is the only factor which is completely universal
and comprehensive
 Gandhi says I dont care for God if He is anything but
Truth
What is Truth?
In logical sense truth is consider to be a property of
judgment
metaphysical sense, it is conceived as right knowledge
As knowledge that correspondence to reality
Gandhi combines all the meaning of the word Truth
then comes to identify Truth with God
 Gandhi asserts that the word Satya is derived from
Sat
This leads him to identify Satya with reality
How can the two be identified with each other?
Truth is picture of reality grasped by human mind
How can picture of reality be identical with the reality
itself
The distinction between knowledge of an object and
the object of knowledge is based on the dualistic
theory of knowledge
 Gandhi says,
My uniform experience has convinced me that there no
other God than truth
The very significant implication of this assertion is that
the object of worship is not God but Truth
This can be very well become a basis for a universal
religion
Because worship of Truth is one thing that can bring person
of every case, creed, and nation together.
He could see that all religious believers of all kind
could be brought together under the banner of Truth
 Truth appear to him as the only force that could unify
even conflicting ideas and ideals
He says,
If it is at all possible for the human tongue to give the fullest
description of Good the we must say that God is Truth
But I went a step further and said Truth is God