by M K Gandhi
38 Narmad, Mari Hakikat, edited by Ramesh Shukla (Surat: Kavi Narmad Yugavrat Trust, 1994), p. 21; translated here from the Gujarati by TS.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Autobiography, Introduction.
42 Sabarmati Nidhi 32215 (Sabarmati Nidhi followed by a number refers to the accession number in the archives of the Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust; henceforth SN).
43 CWMG, vol. 33, p. 299.
44 Chapter XI, Part IV.
45 Ibid.
46 SN 32234, letter of 27 February 1926.
47 Chapter X, Part I.
48 Ibid.
49 Erroneously identified as H.R. Scott in CWMG.
50 Young India, 4 March 1926. Vol. viii, no. 9, p. 82.
51 CWMG, vol. 30, p. 70.
52 Ibid., pp. 70-71.
53 SN 15040, emphasis in the original.
54 CWMG, vol. 36, p. 468. See, n. 137 in Chapter XII, Part IV, for more details.
55 CWMG, vol. 34, p. 80.
56 Ibid., pp. 80-81.
57 SN 13590, letter of 19 March 1928.
58 Ibid.
59 Ibid.
60 SN 11966, letter of 13 February 1928. See Chapter X, Part IV.
61 SN 13002, letter of 19 November 1928.
62 CWMG, vol. 38, p. 112.
63 Autobiography, Introduction.
64 ‘What o Keshava is the mark of the man whose understanding is secure, whose mind is fixed in concentration? How move?’ Verse 54, Discourse II, The Gospel of Selfless Action, p. 11.
65 Autobiography, Introduction.
66 CWMG, vol. 55, p.76.
67 Ibid.
68 Ibid.
69 Autobiography.
70 CWMG, vol. 90, p. 408.
71 CWMG, vol. 25, pp. 23-24.
72 Ibid.
73 CWMG, vol. 54, p. 114.
74 CWMG, vol. 55, p. 120.
75 Ibid., p. 121.
76 Ibid.
77 Ibid. p. 255.
78 CWMG, vol. 55, p. 225.
79 CWMG, vol. 52, p. 244.
80 CWMG, vol. 53, p. 483.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 CWMG, vol. 52, p. 130.
84 CWMG, vol. 55, p. 121.
85 Narayan Desai, Fire and the Rose, translated from the original Gujarati by Chitra Desai (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1995), p. 59.
86 ‘Translator’s Preface’, 1927 edition.
87 ‘Translator’s Preface’, second revised edition.
88 Ibid.
89 Tridip Suhrud, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth: A Table of Concordance (New Delhi: Routledge, 2010), p. 212. Henceforth A Table of Concordance.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid.
92 Ibid., p. 213.
93 A Table of Concordance, p. 214. The reference is to A Dictionary of Modern English Language (1926) by Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933).
94 Ibid., p. 220.
95 Ibid.
96 CWMG, vol. 31, p. 124.
97 Gandhi Marg, June 1986.
98 Ibid., p. 163.
99 Ibid., p. 164.
100 Ibid., p. 169.
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
103 Ibid., p. 170.
104 Ibid.
105 Ibid.
106 A Table of Concordance, p. ix.
107 Ibid., p. x.
108 Ibid., p. xii.
1 In the Gujarati original the title is Satyana Prayogo Athva Atmakatha. The translation in English as it began to appear in Young India (vol. VII, no. 49) was published under the title: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. The first edition, published in two volumes (1927, 1929) had the same title as in Young India. In the second edition of 1940, the cover page carried the title as in the first edition, but on the half-title page ‘An Autobiography’ was introduced. The title page of this edition carried the title An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. This is closer to the Gujarati original, although there is a reversal of order in the English title; in Gujarati the word Atmakatha appears after Satyana Prayogo.
2 Young India carried the translation credit as ‘Translated from Navajivan by Mahadeo Desai’. The first edition, vol. 1 (1927), said ‘Translated from the original in Gujarati by Mahadev Desai’, while in vol. 2 (1929), the translators’ names appeared as Mahadev Haribhai Desai and Pyarelal Nair. The second edition mentioned only one translator, Mahadev Desai. Pyarelal had translated chapters XXIV–XLIII of Part V of the Autobiography during Mahadev Desai’s absence at the time of the Bardoli Agrarian Inquiry by the Broomfield Committee in 1928–29.
1 To the first edition.
2 To the second revised edition.
1 The conflagration in Bombay started on 17 November 1921. MKG commenced a fast against the disturbances on 19 November and broke it after peace was restored on 22 November. As a consequence of the Bombay disturbances, MKG decided to observe a fast every Monday till Swaraj was obtained. He commenced the practice of Monday fast from 27 November 1921.
2 MKG was arrested on 10 March 1922 and charged with sedition on 11 March. He was tried on 18 March and awarded a prison sentence of six years. He was shifted from Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad and confined at the Yeravada Central Prison, Poona, on 21 March 1922. He was released unconditionally on 5 February 1924, while he was admitted to the Sassoon Hospital after an appendicitis operation.
3 Jairamdas Doulatram (1892–1979), general secretary, Indian National Congress (1931–34), served as Governor of Bihar and Assam and as Union Minister for food supply in post-Independence India, first editor of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
4 MKG wrote to Hakim Ajmal Khan on 14 April 1922 that he devotes six hours daily to literary studies and four hours to hand-spinning and carding. His studies began at 6.30 a.m. and he worked till 7 p.m.; he could not work before or after these times as no artificial light was allowed in the prison. To see the list of books that he read during the prison term, see his Jail Diary, 1922 (CWMG, vol. 23, pp. 144–53) and Jail Diary, 1923 (ibid., pp. 178–88).
5 In the first edition ‘reach’, changed in the 1940 edition. In the present critical edition, all changes made in the revised edition of 1940 have been enumerated. These are based on a previous work, Tridip Suhrud, An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth: A Table of Concordance (New Delhi: Routledge, 2010).
6 Swami Anandanand (1887–1976), monk of the Ramakrishna Mission, worked as the manager of Navajivan for a decade after 1919 and edited it for some time while MKG was in prison during 1922–24. He was conferred the Sahitya Akademi Award for his Gujarati work Kulkathao in 1969.
7 Dakshin Africa Na Satyagraha No Itihas was written partly in prison and the rest after his premature release. It was published by Navajivan in 1924 and its English translation by Valji Govindji Desai was published as Satyagraha in South Africa in 1928 by G. Ganesan, Madras.
8 ‘for Navajivan’ added in the English translation.
9 ‘except amongst those who have come under Western influence’ added in the English translation.
10 ‘spoken or’ added in the English translation. The original reads: ‘shape their conduct on the authority of your written word’.
11 ‘to be cautious and’ to add.
12 MD’s footnote: Lit. Freedom from birth and death. The nearest English equivalent is salvation.
13 ‘The experiments I am about to relate are not such.’ Added in the English translation.
14 ‘of religion’ added in the English translation.
15 ‘me’ to add.
16 ‘He alone is True, all else is unreal.’ To add.
17 ‘quickest and’ added in the English translation.
18 ‘in spite of my errors’ to add.
19 Ramayana, ‘Balakanda’.
20 ‘may’ in the first edition, changed in the 1940 edition.
21 ‘Alpatma’ in the original, the opposite of ‘mahatma’.
22 ‘ugly’ added in the English translat
ion.
23 MKG’s prose translation of the verse reads: ‘Who can be so crooked, bad or dissolute as I? I am so faithless that I have forgotten the very God who gave me this body.’ See CWMG, vol. 44, p. 415.
24 ‘I cannot begin the narration of experiments in the introduction.’ To add.
25 In Gujarati original, the date is given as Magsar Sud 11, 1982.
1 ‘and Parentage’ added in the English translation.
2 ‘belong to the Bania caste and’ added in the English translation.
3 ‘in several Kathiawad States’ added in the English translation.
4 ‘my grandfather’ added in the English translation.
5 ‘where he was Diwan’ added in the English translation.
6 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
7 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
8 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
9 His two wives were Kadvi Bai and Lakshmi Bai, respectively.
10 Vallabhji, Pitambar, Ratanji, Jiwanlal.
11 Karamchand, Tulsidas.
12 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
13 The first edition read, ‘Rajasthanik Court now extinct’.
14 ‘It is now extinct . . . fellow-clansmen.’ Line added in the English translation.
15 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
16 ‘having lost his wife each time by death’ added in the English translation.
17 Mulibehn, Pankuvarbehn.
18 Raliatbehn (Gokibehn), Lakshmidas, Karsandas, Mohandas.
19 ‘may’ in the first edition.
20 ‘his chief’ added in the English translation.
21 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
22 ‘the brothers’ to add.
23 ‘may’ in the first edition.
24 Mahadev Desai has reported the following conversation with MKG in Yeravada Prison in 1932: ‘In the morning while examining the proofs of the abridged edition of An Autobiography, I asked Bapu: ‘You have spoken of your mother’s austere vows such as ekadashi, chaturmas, chandrayana, etc., but you have used the word saintliness. Do you not wish to say penance instead of saintliness here? Cannot the word austerity be put in?’
BAPU: ‘No. I have used the word saintliness deliberately. In penance there may be external renunciation, endurance and even hypocrisy. But saintliness is an inner quality. My mother’s inner life would reflect itself in her austerity. If you notice any purity in me, that is not my father’s but my mother’s. My mother died at the age of forty, so I have seen her in the prime of life, but I have never seen in her any frivolity, recourse to beauty aids or interest in the pleasures of life or hypocrisy. The one lasting impression she left on my mind is that of saintliness.’ Mahadevbhai Ni Diary I, p. 67. Reproduced from CWMG, vol. 39, p. 8.
25 ‘the Vaishnava temple’ added in the English translation.
26 MD’s footnote: literally, a period of four months. A vow of fasting and semi-fasting during the four months of the rains. The period is a sort of long Lent.
27 MD’s footnote: a sort of fast in which the daily quantity of food is increased or diminished according as to the moon waxes or wanes. (However, in Young India the footnote reads: ‘An expiatory vow regulated by the waxing and waning of the moon.’ Young India, vol. VII, no. 50.)
28 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
29 ‘Bama Saheb’ in the original.
30 ‘Bhadarva Vad 12, in the Samvat 1925’ to add.
31 Luliya Master’s school (literally, ‘lame teacher’s school’). The teacher’s name was Virji Kamdar. It was a private school. See J.M. Upadhyaya, Mahatma Gandhi: A Teacher’s Discovery (Vallabh Vidyanagar: Sardar Patel University, Undated), p. 3.
32 ‘of having’ in the first edition.
33 The original reads: ‘my memory raw like the half-baked papad in the rhyme that we boys used to sing. I must give those lines. “One is one, bake the papad, the papad is unbaked, . . . is my . . .!” The first blank would have the teacher’s name. I do not wish to immortalize that. The second blank would have an abuse, which I have omitted and need not be filled.’
34 ‘put to’ in the first edition.
35 MKG was in this so-called ‘Branch school’ in 1877 and 1888, and studied Gujarati standard 1 and 2.
36 ‘village’ to add.
37 MKG studied Gujarati standards 3 and 4 in this school from 21 January 1879 to 2 October 1880.
38 MKG was admitted to Kattywar High School on 1 December 1880.
39 ‘and avoided all company’ added in the English translation.
40 ‘at the High School which’ in the first edition.
41 ‘the first standard boys’ to add. (First standard here refers to English First Standard, equal to class six.)
42 Nathu Nagji Ganatra.
43 ‘each’ in the first edition.
44 Comma (,) in the first edition: ‘reading, beyond’.
45 Added in the translation. This three act play written by Ganapatram Jethabhai Bhatt later came to be published as ‘Pitrubhakta Shravan: Natak No Opera.’
46 ‘show-men’ in the first edition; ‘who showed pictures on a bioscope’ to add.
47 The term in the original is ‘Lalit Chand’, a poetic meter as also a melting tune.
48 Comma (,) added in the 1940 edition.
49 ‘my father’s’ added in the English translation.
50 The legend of King Harishchandra appears in several classical Sanskrit texts such as Aitereya Brahmana, the Mahabharata, the Markandeya Purana and the Devi Bhagvata Purana. It is the story of his sacrifice and steadfastness to truth as narrated in the Markandeya Purana that has captured popular imagination. The first full-length feature film made in India was Raja Harishchandra (1914) by Dada Saheb Phalke. The Gujarati play Harishchandra written by Ranchhodbhai Udayram Dave(1837-1923) was an adaption from an English translation of a Tamil play. The play was usually performed by Parsi Natak Mandali.
51 ‘But for me both Harishchandra and Shravana are living realities,’ in the first edition.
52 ‘touched’ in the first edition; ‘to tears’ to add.
53 ‘read again those plays’ in the first edition.
54 ‘might not have to’ in the first edition.
55 The year and month of marriage remain uncertain. MKG states that he was married at the age of 13, which would make the year 1882. According to Chandubhai Bhagubhai Dalal, Gandhiji Ni Dinvari (Ahmedabad: Sabarmati Ashram Preservation and Memorial Trust, 1976), vol. 1, p. 3, footnote 2 (1), the marriage took place in the month of May of 1881. CWMG, vol. 1, p. 343, gives the year of marriage as 1881. J.M. Upadhyaya, Mahatma Gandhi—A Teacher’s Discovery (Vallabh Vidyanagar: Sardar Patel University, 1969) gives the month as May (p. 44) and also as December (p. 143) of 1881.
56 ‘It appears that’ added in the English translation.
57 ‘Marriage requires the presence of the groom and the bride, it entails rituals.’ To add.
58 Motilal Tulsidas.
59 ‘I can describe how it came, but let the reader not be curious about it.’ To add.
60 ‘which I will relate later, that has ever since rankled in my mind’ in the first edition.
61 ‘and which I will relate later’ added in the English translation.
62 (1766–1848), an ascetic and poet of the Swaminarayan sect, composed Bhaktachintamani, his poetic compositions have been compiled as Nishkulanand Kavya.
63 MD’s footnote: Saptapadi are seven steps a Hindu bride and bridegroom walk together, making at the same time promises of mutual fidelity and devotion, after which the marriage becomes irrevocable.
64 ‘we’ added in the 1940 edition.
65 MD’s footnote: Kansar is a preparation of wheat which the pair partake together after the completion of the ceremony.
66 Kastur Bai (1869–1943), daughter of Vrajkunwarba and Gokuldas Makanji Kapadia.
67 ‘I had also understood that one cannot have relationship with any other woman.’ To add.
; 68 ‘without having sought my permission’ to add.
69 Emphasis in the original.
70 ‘for me to teach her.’ To add.
71 ‘would have been’ in the first edition.
72 ‘cannot’ in the first edition.
73 ‘to eight’ to add.
74 ‘unpleasant’ in the first edition.
75 ‘from Rajkot to Bombay’ in the first edition.
76 ‘the’ added in the 1940 edition.
77 ‘after the marriage’ to add.
78 ‘suffer’ in the first edition.
79 ‘present’ added in the English translation.
80 ‘of Kathiawad’ added in the English translation.
81 Gimi was the headmaster of the Kattywar High School from 1882 to 1896.
82 ‘while in the upper classes at the high school’ to add.
83 ‘as nurse to’ added in the English translation.
84 ‘I seethed inside me.’ To add.
85 ‘so that I could serve him’ to add.
86 ‘But though I was none the worse for having neglected exercise’—this line is not in the Gujarati original as published in Navajivan of 3 January 1926. It was probably introduced by Mahadev Desai in his translation and later incorporated in the subsequent Gujarati editions.
87 ‘wrong’ to add.
88 ‘Skill in drawing is necessary for cultivating good handwriting.’ To add.
89 ‘before learning how to write’ added in the English translation.
90 ‘concerning my studies’ to add.
91 ‘Yet this would not only discredit me,’ in the first edition.
92 ‘double’ added in the English translation.
93 ‘then geometry.’ To add.
94 ‘Pandya’ added in the English translation; in the original: ‘Krishnashankar master’.
95 ‘the national language’ to add.
96 ‘of languages’ to add.
97 ‘language’ to add.
98 ‘A Tragedy (1)’ in the original.
99 This friend was Sheikh Mehtab. Mehtab went to Natal and lived in MKG’s house. Chapter 23, part 2, ‘As a Householder’, of the Autobiography describes the incident of their life together in South Africa. Mehtab and his wife Fatima Bai took part in the satyagraha campaign in South Africa. His poems on the satyagraha were published in MKG’s Indian Opinion and have been collected and translated in Surendra Bhana and Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, A Fire that Blazed in the Ocean: Gandhi and the Poems of Satyagraha in South Africa, 1909–1911 (Promila and Co., New Delhi, in association with Bibliophile South Asia, Chicago, 2011). Also see CWMG, vol. 1, p. 4.