E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 49In fact since his South African days he had made truth and nonviolenceas an inalienable part of his faith. And it was duringthose days that he had developed the idea of Satyagraha andpractised it as a major instrument of human liberation. As such,in both Phoenix Settlement and Tolstoy Farm, the primarybasis of their inmates’ life was nothing but truth. However,when he founded the Satyagraha Ashram at Ahmedabad in1915, allegiance to truth was the first vow which every inmatehad to take compulsorily. It was also made clear that the idea oftruth goes much beyond its ordinary meaning and connotationof not telling lies. Simultaneously, it was also made clear toevery inmate that his life would have to be governed by the lawof truth, irrespective of the costs and consequences. Not onlythat, each one of them was to take Prahalad as his role model ashe had opposed his father Hrinayakashyapu without any idea ofretaliation or even rancour.However, it was during the Non-cooperation Movementthat he wrote a long piece viz. ‘What is Truth’ in Navajivan in1920, 1 in which he explained its meaning as well as its widerramifications. Therein, he pointed out that truth implies muchmore than just being truthful or refraining from telling lies. Todig out its deeper meaning, he pointed out that etymologicallysatya is a derivative from sat which means ‘to be’, ‘to exist’.Thus, truth is free from the limitations of time and space, as asense of eternity is attached to its deeper meaning. It is herethat he explained the two facets of truth – absolute and relative.He was fully convinced that beyond our limited relative truththere is ‘one, truth’ which is ‘total’ and all-embracing. Besides,it is all pervading and exists as a ‘royal and sovereign’principle. In Gandhi’s view, the absolute truth is nothing butGod. As such, it is both ‘indescribable and ‘unrealisable’ for anembodied soul. He further asserted that even the purest of thepure could only ‘visualise’ it only by his sheer imagination.And thus, the God and the Absolute Truth are synonymous.