In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi names four figures who influenced his life and philosophy–Leo Tolstoy, John Ruskin, Henry David Thoreau, and Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta.
All four are subjects of interest to UNLV social work professor Satish Sharma, who has undertaken an effort to write a series of books on them, devoting a volume to each.
The first to be published is Gandhi’s Teachers: Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta, a largely biographical work that also provides description of the guru-disciple relationship between the primary subject and Gandhi.
Sharma says he chose to focus on Rajchandra after observing what seemed to be a contradiction in Gandhi’s autobiography: Gandhi calls Rajchandra his principal guru, yet devotes only two and a half pages to discussion of him.
“This lack of information about Rajchandra bothered me, and I decided to explore more about him,” Sharma recalls.
Sharma, a graduate of Panjab University in India, made four trips to his homeland to research Rajchandra, visiting libraries and research institutes in Ahmedabad.
“I talked to the people who had heard about Rajchandra and followed his teachings, and I visited the places established in his honor,” he says.
In Rajchandra Sharma describes the life of the saint-philosopher who practiced Jainism, an Indian religion and philosophy that originated in about the 6th century B.C. as a protest against certain Hindu practices of the period, such as animal sacrifice. Sharma devotes a chapter to discussion of Jainism, in which he explains that Jains abjure injury to all living creatures and believe that the monastic life offers the path to perfection of man’s nature.
Sharma provides biographical details of Rajchandra’s life, follows his commitment to his religion, and offers accounts of his relationship with Gandhi. Sharma offers a chapter and an appendix in the book containing the religious and philosophical questions Gandhi advanced to Rajchandra and the latter’s replies. Finally, Sharma also includes two of Rajchandra’s works, Philosophy of Six Padas and Atma-Siddhi, with commentaries.
Sharma acknowledges that Gandhi’s other three gurus may have achieved greater fame than Rajchandra but says he is their equal in terms of ability to inspire.
“The challenge of this work excited me so much that it motivated me to research Gandhi’s other teachers as well, resulting in the idea of the series,” he says.
Sharma’s volume on Tolstoy is nearly ready for publication, and he continues work on the Ruskin and Thoreau manuscripts.
