10. GLIMPSES OF RELIGION :

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY:
THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH

by Mohandas K. Gandhi



10. GLIMPSES OF RELIGION-





From my sixth or seventh year up to my sixteenth I was at school, being taught all sorts of
things except religion. I may say that I failed to get from the teachers what they could have given
me without any effort on their part. And yet I kept on picking up things here and there from my
surroundings. The term 'religion' I am using in its broadest sense, meaning thereby selfrealization
or knowledge of self.



Being born in the Vaishnava faith, I had often to go to the Haveli. But it never appealed to me. I
did not like its glitter and pomp. Also I heard rumours of immorality being practised there, and lost
all interest in it. Hence I could gain nothing from the Haveli.



But what I failed to get there I obtained from my nurse, an old servant of the family, whose
affection for me I still recall. I have said before that there was in me a fear of ghosts and spirits.
Rambha, for that was her name, suggested, as a remedy for this fear, the repetition
of Ramanama. I had more faith in her than in her remedy, and so at a tender age I began
repeating Ramanama to cure my fear of ghosts and spirits. This was of course short-lived, but the
good seed sown in childhood was not sown in vain. I think it is due to the seed sown by that good
woman Rambha that today Ramanama is an infallible remedy for me.



Just about this time, a cousin of mine who was a devotee of the Ramayana arranged for my
second brother and me to learn Ram Raksha. We got it by heart, and made it a rule to recite it
every morning after the bath. The practice was kept up as long as we were in Porbandar. As soon
as we reached Rajkot, it was forgotten. For I had not much belief in it. I recited it partly because of
my pride in being able to recite Ram Raksha with correct pronunciation.



What, however, left a deep impression on me was the reading of the Ramayana before my
father. During part of his illness my father was in Porbandar. There every evening he used to
listen to the Ramayana. The reader was a great devotee of Rama--Ladha Maharaj of Bileshvar. It
was said of him that he cured himself of his leprosy not by any medicine, but by applying to the
affected parts bilva leaves which had been cast away after being offered to the image of
Mahadeva in Bileshvar temple, and by the regular repetition of Ramanama. His faith, it was said,
had made him whole. This may or may not be true. We at any rate believed the story. And it is a
fact that when Ladha Maharaj began his reading of the Ramayana his body was entirely free from
leprosy. He had a melodious voice. He would sing the Dohas (couplets) and Chopais (quatrains)
and explain them, losing himself in the discourse and carrying his listeners along with him. I must
have been thirteen at that time, but I quite remember being enraptured by his reading. That laid
the foundation of my deep devotion to the Ramayana. Today I regard the Ramayana of Tulsidas
as the greatest book in all devotional literature.



A few months after this we came to Rajkot. There was no Ramayana reading there.
The Bhagavat, however, used to be read on every Ekadashi/1/ day. Sometimes I attended the
reading, but the reciter was uninspiring. Today I see that the Bhagavat is a book which can evoke
religious fervour. I have read it in Gujarati with intense interest. But when I heard portions of the
original read by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya during my twenty-one days' fast, I wished I had
heard it in my childhood from such a devotee as he is, so that I could have formed a liking for it at
an early age. Impressions formed at that age strike roots deep down into one's nature, and it is
my perpetual regret that I was not fortunate enough to hear more good books of this kind read
during that period.




In Rajkot, however, I got an early grounding in toleration for all branches of Hinduism and sister
religions. For my father and mother would visit the Haveli as also Shiva's and Rama's temples,
and would take or send us youngsters there. Jain monks also would pay frequent visits to my
father, and would even go out of their way to accept food from us--non-Jains. They would have
talks with my father on subjects religious and mundane.



He had, besides, Musalman and Parsi friends who would talk to him about their own faiths, and
he would listen to them always with respect, and often with interest. Being his nurse, I often had a
chance to be present at these talks. These many things combined to inculcate in me a toleration
for all faiths.



Only Christianity was at that time an exception. I developed a sort of dislike for it. And for a
reason. In those days Christian missionaries used to stand in a corner near the high school and
hold forth, pouring abuse on Hindus and their gods. I could not endure this. I must have stood
there to hear them once only, but that was enough to dissuade me from repeating the
experiment. About the same time, I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to
Christianity. It was the talk of the town that, when he was baptized, he had to eat beef and drink
liquor, that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in
European costume, including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely, thought I, a religion
that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one's own clothes did not deserve the
name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun abusing the religion of his ancestors,
their customs and their country. All these things created in me a dislike for Christianity.



But the fact that I had learnt to be tolerant to other religions did not mean that I had any living
faith in God. I happened, about this time, to come across Manusmriti,/2/ which was amongst my
father's collection. The story of the creation and similar things in it did not impress me very much,
but on the contrary made me incline somewhat towards atheism.



There was a cousin of mine, still alive, for whose intellect I had great regard. To him I turned
with my doubts. But he could not resolve them. He sent me away with this answer: 'When you
grow up, you will be able to solve these doubts yourself. These questions ought not to be raised
at your age.' I was silenced, but was not comforted. Chapters about diet and the like
in Manusmriti seemed to me to run contrary to daily practice. To my doubts as to this also, I got
the same answer. 'With intellect more developed and with more reading I shall understand it
better,' I said to myself.



Manusmriti at any rate did not then teach me ahimsa. I have told the story of my meat eating.
Manusmritiseemed to support it. I also felt that it was quite moral to kill serpents, bugs,
and the like. I remember to have killed at that age bugs and such other insects, regarding it as a
duty.



But one thing took deep root in me--the conviction that morality is the basis of things, and that
truth is the substance of all morality. Truth became my sole objective. It began to grow in
magnitude every day, and my definition of it also has been ever widening.



A Gujarati didactic stanza likewise gripped my mind and heart. Its precept--return good for evil--
became my guiding principle. It became such a passion with me that I began numerous
experiments in it. Here are those (for me) wonderful lines:



For a bowl of water give a goodly meal;
For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;
For a simple penny pay thou back with gold;
If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.



Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;
Every little service tenfold they reward.
But the truly noble know all men as one,
And return with gladness good for evil done
/1/ Eleventh day of the bright and the dark half of a lunar month.

/2/ Laws of Manu, a Hindu law-giver. They have the sanction of religion.


NEXT :11. PREPARATION FOR ENGLAND-


Continues.....