“When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to Bhagavad-Gita and find a verse to comfort me; and immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. Those who meditate on the Gita will derive fresh joy and new meanings from it every day. “This was said by Mahatma Gandhi, a spiritual and political leader of India, in one of his speeches.
Mahatma Gandhi is most famously known for his peaceful ways and demonstrations that helped liberate India from the hands of Great Britain. Not only was he a freedom fighter of India, some consider him to be the father of his country. He is internationally esteemed for his nonviolent protests to achieve political and social progress (Britannica pg. 1). Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, in the stateof Gujarat.His father, Karamchand Gandhi, was the Chief Minister of Porbandar-a small municipality in Gujarat. His mother, Putlibai, was very religious and devoted her days in the temple of their home. The Bhagavad Gita was a very big influence in Gandhi’s life. Even though he was introduced to it later on in his life, it ended up being the main authority of his peace movements throughout the world. The Bhagavad Gita is considered as one of the most respected and popular religious texts, not only to Hinduism, but to many other religions in the world. The Gita was told to Arjuna by Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu.
A few words about the contents of the Bhagvad Gita may be useful here. It is a poem of 700 stanzas of two to eight lines each, and divided into 18 ‘discourses. The verses vividly narrate the historic warfare between two royal houses, tied by kinship. The Gita is a small part of the epic, the Mahabharata. The date of its composition is ascribed to the period between the fifth and second centuries B.C.Gandhi was a fine product of Indian culture. He was nurtured and sustained by the perennial inspiration of Indian philosophy, said to represent the confluence of all that is best in the Indian thought from the early Vedic age to the age of the modern Indian renaissance. It has been rightly observed that Gandhi embodied in himself the highest ideals of ancient Indian civilisation
Key words: Influence , Gita ,Mahatma , Gandhi’s , Life
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