Fwd: introduction
Kalyani Hingwe
From: Kalyani Hingwe <hingwe....@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 9:21 PM
Subject: introduction
To: Priyanka Bobade <priyanka...@yahoo.in>
INTRODUCTION
Mahatma Gandhi
MAHATMA-“Great Soul”, an honorific first applied to him by
Rabindranath Tagore.
In India his also called “Bapu” ,and officially honored as the Father of the Nation .
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born 2 October 1869 in Porbander
Kathiawar, Gujarat, a coastal town which was then part of the Bombay Presidency, British India.
He was born in Kirti mandir,
Porander.
His father Karamchand Gandhi was the Diwan of Rajkot ,who belonged to the Hindu Modh community, a small princely
State in the Kthiawar Agency of British India.
His Grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, called Utta Gandhi.
His mother, Putlibai, who came from Hindu Pranami Vaishnava community, she was a very courteous and kind hearted lady.
The Growing up with a devout mother and the Jain traditions of the region, the young Mohandas absorbed early the influences that would play an important role in his adult life; these included compassion for sentient beings, vegetarianism, fasting for self-purification, and mutual tolerance among individuals of different creeds.
The Indian classics, especially the stories of Shravana and Maharaja Harishchandra, had a great impact on Gandhi in his childhood.
In his autobiography, he admits that it left an indelible impression on his mind. He writes: "It haunted me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times
Without number." Gandhi's early self-identification with
Truth and Love as supreme values is traceable to these epic character
In May 1883, the 13-year-old Mohandas was married to 14-year-old Kasturbai Makhanji (her first name was usually shortened to "Kasturba", and affectionately to "Ba") in an arranged child marriage, according to the custom of the region.
Mohandas and Kasturba had four more children, all sons: Harilal, born in 1888; Manilal, born in 1892; Ramdas, born in 1897; and Devdas, born in 1900.
At his middle school in Porbandar and high school in Rajkot, Gandhi remained an average student. He passed the matriculation exam for Samaldas College at Bhavnagar, Gujarat
On 4 September 1888, Gandhi travelled to London, England, to study law at University where he studied Indian law and jurisprudence and to train as a barrister at the Inner Temple.
His time in London, the Imperial capital, was influenced by a vow he had made to his mother in the presence of the Jain monk Becharji, upon leaving India, to observe the Hindu precepts of abstinence from meat, alcohol, and promiscuity.
Although Gandhi experimented with adopting "English" customs—taking dancing lessons for example—he could not stomach the bland vegetarian food offered by his landlady, and he was always hungry until he found one of London's few vegetarian restaurants.
Influenced by Salt’s book, he joined the Vegetarian Society, was elected to its executive committee, and started a local Bayswater chapter.
Some of the vegetarians he met were members of the Theosophical, which had been founded in 1875 to further universal brotherhood, and which was devoted to the study of Buddhist and Hindu literature.
They encouraged Gandhi to join them in reading the both in translation as well as in the original.
Not having shown interest in religion before, he became interested in religious thought and began to read Hindu, Muslim and Christian scriptures.
Gandhi was called to the bar on 10 June 1891. Two days later, he left
London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in
London and that his family had kept the news from him.
His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed and, later, after applying and being turned down for a part-time job as a high school teacher, he ended up returning to Rajkot to make a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, a business he was forced to close when he ran foul of a British officer.
In his autobiography, Gandhi refers to this incident as an unsuccessful attempt to lobby on behalf of his older brother.
It was in this climate that, in April 1893, he accepted a year-long contract
from Dada Abdullah & Co., an Indian firm, to a post in the Colony of Natal,
South Africa, then part of the British Empire.