Preamble

In my study, I shall investigate some aspects of Gandhi’s meditation on the Bhagavad Gita^[1]. Gandhi’s observations on the Gita regard many aspects, such as Divinity, the problem of good and evil, the structure of reality, the individual’s nature, the conflict present in the individual’s nature between virtue and vice, the individual’s position in the reality, the individual’s possible developments, and the duty of the individual as regards his moral development. Gandhi’s meditation on the Gita proves to be an inquiry into the foundations of reality, of morality, and of society. The aim of my analysis consists in reconstructing Gandhi’s steps towards the discovery of these foundations.

I would like to begin my inquiry with a quotation taken from Gandhi’s Discourses on the “Gita”, since I think that Gandhi’s statements, as they are expressed in this specific passage, represent a good synthesis of all the considerations, aims, observations and goals expressed throughout Gandhi’s work of interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita:

‘And so Krishna says:

“Though I was never born in time, though I am the Lord of all creatures, I incarnate Myself and am born as a human being.”

This is the essential nature of the atman. If we realize this truth, we would always act in conformity with that nature; we then act, though born as human beings, as if we were never born. If the atman in each of us is identical with the atman in everyone else, one atman born in a body means all of them born, and all others born means that one born too.

[…] We can follow reason only up to a point. What, then, does avatar mean? It is not as if God comes down from above. It would be right to say, if we can say it without egotism, that each one of us is an avatar. The atman in every body is as potent as the atman in any other, though outwardly we see differences. In our awakened state all are one, though in our ignorant state we may seem separate existences. In real truth, there are not several, there is only one.’^[2]

[1] In my inquiry, I am interested in Gandhi’s interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita and in the aims which Gandhi had in his interpretation. Therefore, I am not going to analyse the defensibility of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gita. Likewise, I am not going to expose the possible criticisms of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gita. My attention is directed to the investigation of the elements which Gandhi found in the Gita in order to promote his meditation and develop his own formation. The meditation on the Gita is a process of formation for Gandhi.For my analysis of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gita, I referred to and shall refer to Gandhi’s Discourses on the “Gita”, contained in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), pp. 94–376. I also referred to and, within my contribution, shall also refer to the work of Mahadev Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, since Gandhi’s exposition of Anāsaktiyoga gives very important elements for the understanding of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gita.
The notes which I have written on Gandhi’s meditations on the Gita refer only to a little part of the contents which can be found in the whole extension of Gandhi’s meditations on the Gita. As regards this research, I am interested in those observations of Gandhi which deal with the Gita’s considerations on the individual’s nature.
As regards commentaries and studies on the Gita (besides the analysis contained in Desai’s work), I consulted the following works: S.M. Srinivasa Chari, The Philosophy of Bhagavadgītā; The Bhagavad Gita. With Text, Translation, and Commentary in the Words of Sri Aurobindo; The Bhagavad Gītā (Sanskrit Text, Transliteration, English Translation & Philological Notes). Introduction by W. Douglas P. Hill. Translated by John Davies; Ithamar Theodor, Exploring the Bhagavad Gītā. Philosophy, Structure and Meaning.
All the pieces of information regarding the studies used for this contribution can be found in the bibliography contained at the end of this analysis. The responsibility for the interpretation which I expose in my paper is, of course, mine alone.
[2] See The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), p. 189.

This passage represents, in my opinion, a synthesis of the foundations of Gandhi’s thought as regards the moral and the political order which Gandhi aims to establish^[3].. The following principles of Gandhi’s interest in and interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita can, in my opinion, be extracted from the passage quoted above:

1. God is present in the individual’s dimension. Gandhi’s God is not an absent God. God’s descent shows that God is not extraneous to the individuals. He is not the absolutely other in relation to the individuals. He does not exist in a dimension which is completely different from the individual’s dimension. God is not absolutely transcendent. Individuals, correspondingly, are not only immanent, since they are all manifestations of Atman.
2. The individual’s learning that the nature of the individual is Atman implies, for the individual, a corresponding programme of action. The individual’s mind is not given once and for all; it can have and will have a development.
3. Everybody is an avatar of God, and everybody is a manifestation, a concretisation of Atman. Everybody is a manifestation of the Divinity. Individuals are unified in Atman.
4. Atman is identical in all individuals: Atman is equally potent in all individuals. The root of the reciprocal equality of all individuals consists in the equal presence of Atman in every individual.
5. The fact that Atman is equally present in all individuals means that everybody has equal dignity. Since all individuals are avatars of God, and since Atman is equally potent in all individuals, then all individuals are equal. Hence, no consideration of the individuals as unequal entities is legitimate.
6. All individuals are one and only one entity; they are all Atman. There are no separately existing individuals.
7. Individuals can change through the knowledge of the revelation; their nature is not determined, at least not in all aspects. Individuals have a space for development.
8. From the acquaintance with his being Atman, the individual learns that he ought to give up his attachment to the ego, since this attachment directly leads to the mutual separation of the individuals. The road to the recognition of the common nature of Atman proves to be, therefore, the road to liberation from the attachment to the ego. The road of knowledge is the road to liberation since knowledge is emendation of the individual from the limitations belonging to his initial condition. This kind of knowledge produces a transformation of the individual.
9. The individual’s slavery comes from his being restricted within the sphere of senses and within his individuality. The individual’s freedom consists in the spiritual transformation which comes about thanks to the individual’s acknowledgement of the common presence of Atman.
10. The method of Gandhi’s investigation consists in searching for a factor of transformation of the individual. Gandhi aims to find a kind of education which transforms the individual from a condition of limitedness to a condition of progressive liberation from his limitations, since the individual understands that the dimension of the senses is pure appearance and that there is another dimension beyond the appearance. The acquisition of the knowledge that there is another dimension enables the individual to become at least partially free from his limitations.
11. Since all individuals are one entity in Atman, they ought to act in conformity with the common nature of Atman. Reciprocal harmony, and not mutual strife, ought to be the principle of their behaviour and of their mind disposition.
12. To learn that he is a manifestation of Atman leads the individual to act as though he were never born. The individual assumes the dimension of being eternal and the awareness of being eternal. Therewith, the individual becomes able to free himself from the specific historical conditions in which he is living.
13. Through the revelation of the Gita, the individual acquires a point of view on the whole reality which is completely different from the point of view which he originally had; he becomes able to mentally transcend the particularities of his initial life condition. He becomes able to understand that he is spiritually something other than the specific conditions in which he is living.
14. The individual’s mind is being transformed through and thanks to the revelation of the Gita. Since the individual is transformed through the revelation from his previous condition, the individual is already partially transcendent as regards his limitations: he is already partially transcending his limitations.
15. The recognition of the identical presence of Atman in everybody represents the passage from the ignorant state – in which individuals think that they are mutually separate beings – to the awakened state – in which individuals become aware that they all are one and the same entity.
16. Since the individual condition of being an avatar can be known only after meditating on the Gita, learning the contents of the divine revelation proves, on closer inspection, to be indispensable for the moral formation of the individual^[4]... There can be no authentic education without meditation on the divine revelation.
17. The individual’s awareness of one’s own condition and position in the reality is developed through the individual’s learning of the Gita. The awakened state will not arise by itself; the individual’s engagement is needed. The Gita proves to be the source of the individual’s enlightenment and of the individual’s transformation^[5].

[3] As regards analyses of Gandhi’s interpretation of the Gita, I refer, for instance, to the study of Dipesh Chakrabarty – Rochona Majumdarm, Gandhi’s Gita and Politics as Such, and to the study of Vivek Dareshwar, Framing the Predicament of Indian Thought: Gandhi, the Gita, and Ethical Action.
[4] In this context, I intentionally limit the analysis of this specific passage to a few notes since the passage will find a more extended comment thereafter. I exclusively aim to find through this passage some of Gandhi’s principles in order to gain elements which can be relevant for the whole inquiry.
[5] As regards an investigation on Gandhi’s religious thought, I recommend Akeel Bilgrami’s study Gandhi’s religion and its relation to his politics. For an inquiry into the connections between the different works of Gandhi, I refer to the study of Tridip Suhrud Gandhi’s key writings: In search of unity. In this context, I would like at least to mention the alternative interpretation of the Gita which was given by Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar in his text Essays on the Bhagwat Gita: Philosophic Defence of Counter–Revolution: Krishna and His Gita. As regards Ambedkar’s interpretation of the caste system and Ambedkar’s criticism of Gandhi, I refer to Ambedkar’s text Castes in India, Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development, to Annihilation of Caste with a Reply to Mahatma in Gandhi and to Ambedkar’s text Who were the Shudras. How they came to be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-Aryan Society. For a further analysis of Ambedkar’s positions and of the Gandhi–Ambedkar debate, I recommend the studies of Aishwary Kumar, Ambedkar’s Inheritances, of Bindu Puri. The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate (1931– 1956). Alternative Approaches to Memory and Identity, and of Vidhu Verma, Modernity, Colonial Injustice and Individual Responsibility. A Study of Gandhi and Ambedkar.

Introduction

Coming now to a description of my inquiry, I would like to analyse in my contribution some of Gandhi’s considerations on the Gita. The aim which I have in my investigation is to show that the meditation on the Gita represents, for Gandhi, the search for and the discovery of the foundations of the individual’s education. The right education of the individual has precise social consequences: it represents the foundation of a good order within a society and between societies.

In Gandhi’s meditation on the Gita’s teachings, we can see that the reflections on the individual condition described within the Gita are connected to a collective and to a social dimension. The teachings of the Gita represent, in Gandhi’s view, a programme for the foundation of the right moral and political action.

Throughout his meditation on the Gita, Gandhi aims to show that the knowledge of the revelation of the Gita can give the individual the right moral education and the right moral foundations. The Gita teaches, on the one hand, that the nature of the individual is given as regards his own components – i.e., the three gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas –. The Gita also teaches, on the other hand, that the nature of the individual is not given as regards the degree of strength and of influence of each of these components. The components of the individual are given, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, the concrete development of the individual is not given; this development depends on the individual’s decisions as regards his moral formation.

Gandhi states that the individual is responsible for the evolution and the development which his own components will have within himself; this development is open. The individual is free to choose, can choose, and ought to choose the direction of his moral development. Consequently, the right moral development will not arise by itself, nor will the right political order arise by itself; the individual ought to act for the right moral and political organisation to be realised.

The engagement of the individual is required both for due learning and for due acting. First, the individual needs and ought to learn his condition in the reality, the elements of his nature, and the possible ways of his development. In a certain measure, the nature of the individual is still to arise, since exclusively the components of the individual’s nature and not the concrete development of the components of the individual’s nature are given. The form which the different components take depends on the education of the individual.

Correspondingly, there is no common nature for all the individuals; there is only a common series of initial components. The authentic nature will arise on the basis of the development which the individual, thanks to a correct choice, will be able to reach. The strengthening of a component or of another component depends on the individual’s choice. The Gita reveals the initial condition of the individual: the further development of the individual depends on the individual’s choices. The way in which the individual is composed is given; the development of the individual is not given.

In Gandhi’s view, the process of learning obtained through meditation on the whole Gita can give everyone the knowledge of truth, of God, of reality, and of his own essence. Through this process of learning, the individual acquires the capacity to organise and to modify his mind towards the right moral condition. For instance, thanks to the teachings of the Gita, the individual comes to know the existence of the three gunas – i.e., the qualities of reality, sattva, rajas, and tamas. In particular, the individual learns that his own nature consists of these three qualities and that the influence of these qualities can be modified depending on the level of education reached by the individual. In Gandhi’s view, learning Gita’s teachings and meditating on the Gita’s contents turn out to be indispensable for improving, in every individual, the strength of the good component of his own soul (i.e., sattva) and for diminishing the influence exercised by the other components of his soul (i.e., rajas and tamas)^[6]. Furthermore, through the Gita’s principles, the individual becomes able to know that he ought to improve the force of sattva and to diminish the force of rajas and tamas. The place of individual development is, therefore, the meditation on the revelation.

Correspondingly, without the process of learning and without the process of maturation produced within the individual’s mind by the process of meditation, the individual will have no possibility to learn the duty to improve the strength of sattva in himself and to learn the duty to diminish the force of rajas and of tamas^[7].

Gita’s revelation teaches that all individuals have a common nature; since all individuals are avatars of God, they constitute a common entity. Atman is the common foundation of all individuals. Although they appear to be divided and mutually separated, all individuals prove to be, on closer inspection, one and the same entity. All individuals are Atman; all individuals are manifestations of the same principle. On the basis of this point, Gandhi can state that the division between individuals has no ground to exist. Therefore, the knowledge of the Gita can immediately provide norms of behaviour for individuals towards each other.

To summarise, the process of learning the revelation of the Gita is the right way for the individual to reach greater and greater degrees of right moral disposition; the truth manifested by the Gita will represent the foundation for the morally right individual and for peace between individuals.

The right political action has its foundation in the right moral formation. As a result, the improvement of the individuals brings about the improvement of the political and social order in which individuals live. Through and thanks to the Gita’s teachings, education finds its due foundation. This kind of education is the basis of the right political and social order: this education represents, for Gandhi, the indispensable foundation of the mutual dialogue between individuals and represents the foundation of the peaceful coexistence between individuals. There is no separation between the morally right political strategy, on the one hand, and the right moral education, on the other hand. The right political strategy needs the right moral education; the right education of the individual is the basis for the right political order^[8].

[6] Sattva, tamas, and rajas are defined, in the translation of the Gita contained in Desai’s work, in the following way:
‘XIV 6. Of these sattva, being stainless, is light-giving and healing; it binds with the bond of happiness and the bond of knowledge, O sinless one.’
‘XIV 7. Rajas, know thou, is of the nature of passion, the source of thirst and attachment; it keeps man bound with the bond of action.’
‘XIV 8. Tamas, know thou, born of ignorance, is mortal man’s delusion; it keeps him bound with heedlessness, sloth and slumber, O Bharata.’
‘XIV 9. Sattva attaches man to happiness, rajas to action, and tamas, shrouding knowledge, attaches him to heedlessness.’ (see Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, p. 327; the passages are also quoted in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), p. 315).
To be noted, among other things, is the connection of sattva with spiritual knowledge and the connection of tamas with the shrouding of spiritual knowledge. Tamas is the component directly opposed to spiritual knowledge and, therefore, to the education of the individual. The individual needs to limit the influence of tamas if he wants to arrive at spiritual knowledge. Correspondingly, to reach knowledge means, as such, limiting the power of tamas.
[7] The mutual relationships among the three forces are modified by the process of strengthening of one of them over the others:
‘XIV 10. Sattva prevails, O Bharata, having overcome rajas and tamas; rajas, when it has overpowered sattva and tamas; likewise tamas reigns when sattva and rajas are crushed.’ (see Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, p. 327).
This passage shows that the mutual relationship among the three qualities can change. The components of reality and of the soul are given, but their strength and influence within the individual are not given; they can be modified. Sattva can prevail in the individual only after a process of meditation and of education. Sattva does not autonomously arise; the individual needs and ought to act so that sattva can become stronger and stronger. The improvement of sattva turns out to be, therefore, a difficult process for the individual. The individual’s engagement is needed for the development of sattva.
[8] Throughout Gandhi’s meditation on the Gita, we can observe the presence of reflections which are directed to the education and formation of the individual as such. Furthermore, we can observe the presence of reflections which expose the norms deriving, for society, from this education and this formation. Gandhi’s attention is directed to both aspects.

1. Summary of Gandhi’s positions

In the following summary, we can find the main ideas of Gandhi, which I have already partially introduced and which I am going to further develop in my contribution:

1. Gandhi firmly believes in the power of transformation exercised on the individual by the knowledge of the truth, i.e., by the learning of the revelation. The knowledge of the truth expressed in the revelation of the Gita successfully modifies men as regards their moral dimension^[9]. The spiritual knowledge obtained through meditation on the Gita transforms the individual mind^[10]. Individuals ought to develop themselves from their initial condition; revelation is the teaching programme for development.
2. To follow the truth does not admit any exception, since God is the truth.
3. The knowledge of the truth and the learning process needed for the individual to grasp this kind of knowledge are indispensable for the individual in order that he can find the foundations both of the right moral disposition and of the right political order^[11]. The right moral individual education is the indispensable basis for the right political order.
4. Individuals are composed entities. They consist of different components which do not live in harmony with each other. This nature is a problem for the individual since the individual needs and ought to find the correct disposition of the three gunas.
5. Individuals are morally limited entities; they cannot completely eliminate bad factors as long as they are in the corporeal dimension. A component of evil will remain in the individual as long as they find themselves in the earthly dimension.
6. Individuals are battlefields; they have a psychic division between good factors and bad factors.
7. The responsibility of every individual consists in strengthening the good factors and in taming the negative factors which are present in his soul. Evil elements are not eliminable; the individual is not perfect.
8. Individuals ought to become aware of their limits. Despite their limits, individuals do not need to despair because of their limits; they ought to be confident in what they can do^[12]. Moreover, to have limits does not mean that the individual has no duty as regards the way in which the individual deals with his own limits; the individual ought to act against his limits. The individual may not simply accept his limits and live without doing anything against them: the individual ought to fight against his own limits.
9. The individual ought to acquire knowledge and develop himself on the basis of the knowledge which the individual manages to reach. He may not remain in a condition of ignorance, and he may not accept their inner condition as it is. The individual may not remain in a condition of passivity towards his own nature if he wishes to reach a moral foundation and moral development; he ought to act by developing sattva in himself.

[9] The connection between spiritual knowledge and sattva can be found in the following statements of the Gita:
‘XIV 11. When the light – knowledge – shines forth from all the gates of this body, then it may be known that the sattva thrives.’
‘XIV 12. Greed, activity, assumption of undertakings, restlessness, craving — these are in evidence when rajas flourishes, O Bharatarshabha.’
‘XIV 13. Ignorance, dullness, heedlessness, and delusion — these are in evidence when tamas reigns, O Kurunandana.’
‘XIV 14. If the embodied one meets his end whilst sattva prevails, then he attains to the spotless worlds of the knowers of the Highest.’
‘XIV 15. If he dies during the reign within him of rajas, he is born among men attached to action; and if he dies in tamas, he is born in species not endowed with reason.’ (see Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, pp. 328–329).
Knowledge is the cause of sattva. If sattva is present, spiritual knowledge is present. The flourishing of sattva in the individual is manifested by the presence of spiritual knowledge and is made visible by the presence of spiritual knowledge in the individual. The positivity of sattva clearly emerges from these statements. The negativity of rajas and tamas is likewise clear. Furthermore, the development of sattva is directly connected to the presence of spiritual knowledge
[10] In the teachings of the Gita, spiritual knowledge turns out to be indispensable for the individual to arrive at a condition of purity. Spiritual knowledge represents the best factor for the purification of the soul:
‘IV 38. There is nothing in this world so purifying as Knowledge. He who is perfected by yoga finds it in himself in the fullness of time.’ (see Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, p. 207)
If the individual wishes to reach purification, he needs to achieve the kind of knowledge transmitted by the revelation of the Gita.
[11] The Gita teaches that the responsibility for the presence of virtue and vice in the soul depends on the individual:
‘V 15. The Lord does not take upon Himself anyone’s vice or virtue; it is ignorance that veils knowledge and deludes all creatures.’ (see Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, p. 216)
The individual ought to take the due steps so that he can become free from ignorance. Divinity is not responsible.
[12] In Desai, The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita according to Gandhi, p. 145, we can find the following interesting considerations regarding the possibilities connected to the individual’s action:
‘[…] Lord Krishna distinguishes between body (not-Self) and Atman (Self) and shows that whilst bodies are impermanent and several, Atman is permanent and one. Effort is within man’s control, not the fruit thereof. All he has to do, therefore, is to decide his course of conduct or duty on each occasion and persevere in it, unconcerned about the result. Fulfillment of one’s duty in the spirit of detachment or selflessness leads to Freedom.’

2. The human condition: human beings are battlefields

As I have anticipated in the introduction, I think that one of the causes of the interest of Gandhi for the Gita lies in Gandhi’s search for the contents of the individual’s education. Education consists in establishing, in the individual, a general disposition which will make the individual able to take the morally right decisions.

In Gandhi’s view, the revelation of the Gita explains, among other things, that the individual condition corresponds to that of a battlefield; the human condition can be compared with a battlefield in which reciprocally hostile moral potencies fight against each other. The first step for the education of the individual consists in the individual’s analysing his own position and his own condition in the reality in order that he could see what he is, how he ought to change and what he ought to do. Knowledge and self-knowledge are indispensable for the development of the individual. The individual moral starting point is not easy; the first step which the individual ought to make in order to begin a process of moral self-improvement consists in becoming aware of his complex life condition, of his composite essence, and of his divided constitution. Only through this awareness does the individual become able to understand the necessity of finding the right formation for his moral constitution. The individual ought and needs to understand that his condition is difficult.

The individual ought to engage himself in the action; the engagement is in the individual’s power, whereas the results of the engagement are uncertain. The individual ought to learn that only the engagement is in his power and, consequently, ought to concentrate his attention on the promotion of his engagement. Since the results do not depend on him, he should not concentrate his effort on the results. The individual ought to concentrate his attention on his disposition, on his education, and on his intentions.

As regards the individual moral condition, Gandhi expresses the following positions, basing his reflections on his interpretation of the general sense of the Mahabharata:

‘The Mahabharata is not history; it is a dharma-grantha. […] The battle described here is, therefore, a struggle between dharma and adharma. […] the epic describes the battle ever raging between the countless Kauravas and Pandavas dwelling within us. It is a battle between the innumerable forces of good and evil which become personified in us as virtues and vices. We shall leave aside the question of violence and non-violence and say that this dharma-grantha was written to explain man’s duty in this inner strife.’^[13]

The individual is the field of the battle between evil and good: there is a battle in the individual between the moral order (dharma) and the moral disorder (adharma). The possibility of degeneration cannot be excluded. The fact that the individual’s constitution has the described composition explains the presence of evil in the world. There is a condition of inner strife, and there is a duty of the individual related to the inner strife. The condition of inner strife means that the individual can degenerate and explode; this has consequences both for the individual and for society. Thanks to the epic narration, the individual can moreover understand his own duty; there is a moral message in the epic narration. The epic narration proves to be an allegory of the individual’s condition.

As we can see, Gandhi interprets the Mahabharata in a metaphorical way: the Mahabharata is not a history text; it is a religious text (dharma-grantha). The battle of the Mahabharata turns out to be, on closer inspection, the battle between the good and evil which are present in everybody. This means that the individual is composed of forces of evil, on the one hand, and forces of good, on the other hand. The individual psychic condition is not void; both forces of evil and of good are present in the individual. In particular, the individual has vices in himself. There are bad components with which the individual ought to reckon and which the individual ought to appropriately face. The individual ought to become aware that there are negative components within himself.

The presence of evil forces within the individual means that the individual can be or become bad: the possibility of evil cannot be excluded. Consequently, the individual cannot remain indifferent if he wishes to reach the right moral formation and unless he wants to remain exposed to a conflict situation. From the awareness of the presence of bad components in the individual, the question arises whether and how the individual can be liberated from these bad components. There is a condition of inner strife within the individual. The individual has duties related to this strife. The individual may not simply take notice of it; the individual ought to act appropriately in relation to this strife. The individual may not resign to the presence of this strife, and he may not simply live his own condition as it is immediately given. He ought to counteract the presence of evil. The individual has and will always have precise limits for his development: he cannot eliminate these limits, but he can improve his initial condition. The components of the individual are given; the development of the individual is not given. The individual is not responsible for the components which he has; however, the individual is responsible for the development of his components.

Gandhi does not stop at the consideration of the inner condition of the individual, but he adds that the Mahabharata was written in order to expose the duty of the individual in relation to his soul. The presence of evil and of inner strife in the individual does not mean that the individual may remain passive in relation to the given situation. The individual ought to become aware of his own condition and to educate himself correspondingly in order that the influence of the bad components could be diminished.

The fact that the individual has this composition does not mean that he is not responsible for his life and for his behaviour; the right moral development can be reached only through the engagement of the individual. The individual, therefore, ought to take a decision on his future moral constitution^[14]. The individual ought to develop sattva in himself. Since vices are present in him, the individual ought to learn the road to the right moral formation in order to be able to limit the power of his vices. Gandhi then adds on this specific subject:

‘[…] the battle-field described here is primarily the one inside the human body. […] here the physical battle is only an occasion for describing the battle-field of the human body. In this view the names mentioned are not of persons but of qualities which they represent. What is described is the conflict within the human body between opposing moral tendencies imagined as distinct figures. […] It is the human body that is described as Kurukshetra, as dharma-kshetra.’^[15]

As we can see, the individual is constitutively internally divided into different forces which correspond to good and evil. Mutually opposing tendencies are present in the individual. There is a conflict of factors within the individual; the individual has within himself mutually conflicting forces. Consequently, the individual may not remain in a state of inaction if he really aims to reach a moral education. The individual ought to act. The responsibility begins as soon as the individual knows that he is a composed entity; the individual’s responsibility consists in deciding whether the individual wants to let virtue or vice grow in himself.

The condition of internal conflict could be externalised into the social texture. Historical phenomena, consequently, have their root, their origin, and their cause in the internal structure of the individual. The Mahabarata provides, in Gandhi’s view, the explanation of the origin of evil in the individual and in society; the evil is within the individual, with all the consequences which derive from this presence. This does not mean that the individual is only evil, but it means that the evil exists in the individual and, consequently, in the social dimension.

The problem of the presence of evil in society cannot be solved unless the condition of conflict of the individual is at least limited. The correct education and development of the individual are the basis, the foundation and the presupposition for the correct order of society. No correct moral society is possible without the correct development of the individual.

[13] See The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), p. 95.
[14] Since the individual ought to follow the truth – as we shall see in a further passage of Gandhi’s meditation –, the individual may not avoid taking a decision as regards his condition in the world. The individual ought to follow the truth; therefore, his decision ought to be in favour of the learning process. This process leads the individual to the truth and to the knowledge of reality (and, consequently, to his moral transformation). Not taking any decision as regards one’s own life means taking a decision to the advantage of the evil forces, since the individual needs the due development in order to arrive at the right moral condition. The individual ought to develop spiritual knowledge. This knowledge will not arise by itself. The engagement of the individual is needed; a path of practice of virtues is needed.
[15] See The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. XXXII (November 1926 – January 1927), p. 96.

Autore: Gianluigi Segalerba