ABSTRACT
The biographers of Mohandās Karamchand Gāndhi will have a hard task to separate fact from fiction, hearsay from truth. Even in his lifetime Gāndhi took on something of the character of a mythological figure: a symbol, an image to point to or swear by, one endowed with almost miraculous gifts and powers. Many a time I have myself invoked his name to clinch an argument or to point a moral, particularly during the 1914–1918 War, when I called myself a pacifist. My pacifism was ostensibly inspired by the teachings of Jesus Christ, as expounded by Leo Tolstoy. I say “ostensibly,” because I have since come to believe that great teachers do not hand over their teachings, but only raise into consciousness ideas and tendencies which lie embedded in their pupils’ own minds. Whether this is so or not, it is certainly true that when the First World War broke out I was already wedded to the ideal of non-resistance and non-violence and looked upon Gāndhi as one of the most notable exponents of the faith. Because he was teaching and acting in accordance with my own beliefs, I accepted him whole, without question.
