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Beskrivelse
Mahatma Gandhi is hardly less than a global super-celebrity. He is regarded as an apostle of nonviolence. But he insisted that his primary concept was rather truth, from which nonviolence was derived. He clarified that truth was the end and nonviolence was the means. This book, Mahatma Gandhi's Thought: Philosophy of Truth and Nonviolence, by Ramesh N. Patel, breaks new ground by explaining, through a vigorous intellectual support, the meaning and application of the Mahatma's central concept of truth. The Mahatma claimed that it was easier for him to identify truth but he struggled to define nonviolence. Thinkers have found the opposite and have focused on nonviolence, neglecting to dig deep into truth. They generally regard his truth as a murky and mysterious idea. Kishorlal Mashruwala, an intellectually inclined close associate of Gandhiji, delineated the Mahatma's dual concept of truth and showed the derivation of nonviolence from it in a forthright manner. His work, called "Quintessence of Gandhi's Thought," written in Gujarati and not yet available in English, was approved by the Mahatma as authentic and accurate. It is also regarded as the Bible of Gandhiji's thought in the circle of Gandhian thinkers. The present work stands out by drawing from it and clarifying the foundations of Gandhiji's thought on which other key ideas of the Mahatma were built.It turns out that Gandhiji's dual concept of truth is a distinctly original thinking of his own, unmatched in the history of moral and spiritual thought in history, both Eastern and Western. Moreover, it offers a stunningly challenging ethic whose demanding nature is mind-boggling. That the Mahatma did not simply conceive such an extremely demanding ethic but followed it up in his life work attests to yet another aspect of his greatness. Needless to say, the present work makes a ground-breaking contribution in understanding the Mahatma as a cogent and original rather than a mystical and mysterious thinker.The book starts with the author's familial exposure to Gandhiji and his family. It then presents the Mahatma's overall thought in a philosophically systematic manner. This is its unique feature compared to the enormous Gandhi literature that has not succeeded in bringing out the aspect of coherence in the Mahatma's thought.
