The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi

By Mahatma Gandhi

Regarded in India as one of the most important books of the 20th century, Gandhi’s commentary on this classic Hindu text addresses the issues he felt most directly affected the spiritual lives of common people.
 
The Bhagavad Gita, also called The Song of the Lord, is a 700-line section of a much longer Sanskrit war epic, the Mahabharata, about the legendary conflict between two branches of an Indian ruling family. Framed as a conversation between Krishna, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and a general of one of the armies, the Gita is written in powerful poetic language meant to be chanted. Equally treasured as a guide to action, a devotional scripture, a philosophical text, and inspirational reading, it remains one of the world’s most influential, widely read spiritual books.

The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi is based on talks given by Gandhi between February and November 1926 at the Satyagraha Ashram in Ahmedabad, India. During this time—a period when Gandhi had withdrawn from mass political activity—he devoted much of his time and energy to translating the Gita from Sanskrit into his native Gujarati. As a result, he met with his followers almost daily, after morning prayer sessions, to discuss the Gita’s contents and meaning as it unfolded before him. This book is the transcription of those daily sessions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781556439780

Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) was an Indian lawyer, nationalist, and civil rights activist. Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, he was first given the honorary title of Mahatma—Sanskrit for “great-souled”—in 1914 while living in South Africa. Raised in Gujarat in a prominent Hindu family, he travelled to London and studied law at the Inner Temple. Called to the Bar in 1891, Gandhi returned to India for a brief time before settling in South Africa. There, he started a family while perfecting his style of nonviolent resistance grounded in civil disobedience. In 1915, he returned to his native country to join the fight against British rule, organizing peasants across India to take a stand against taxation, racism, and other forms of colonial oppression. He became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1921 and increased his involvement with the movements for women’s rights, religious and ethnic equality, and the elimination of India’s caste system, which unjustly effected Dalits deemed untouchable from birth. His central cause, however, was Swaraj, which can be translated as self-governance or democracy. As his popularity increased, he simplified his lifestyle in solidarity with the Indian poor, wearing traditional clothing, eating vegetarian food, and fasting as a matter of personal hygiene and protest. In 1930, he led the twenty-five day Dandi Salt March or Salt Satyagraha, in response to a British salt tax, inspiring millions of Indians to take direct action against British rule. A proponent of religious pluralism, he lamented the interfaith violence between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims that broke out following independence and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. At 78 years old, he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist for his outreach to the Muslim community.