The Essential Gandhi (54 page)

GANDHI, MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND
.
An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth
. Mahadev Desai, tr. Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, 1927; current ed. with foreword by Sisela Bok, Boston: Beacon Press, 1957, 1993. Gandhi’s account of his early life, published serially in
Young India;
stops with 1920. Coverage of the years in South Africa is so sparse as to make little sense without
Satyagraha in South Africa
.

———.
Satyagraha in South Africa
. Valji Govindji Desai, tr. Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1928; rev. ed. 1950; reprints include: Greenleaf Books, 1979. An invaluable account of Gandhi’s development of the “matchless weapon” he called
satyagraha
.

GANDHI, MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND
.
All Men Are Brothers: Life and Thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi as Told in His Own Words
. Krishna Kripalani, ed. UNESCO, 1958; several reprints available. An excellent and very readable anthology; the first chapter is an autobiographical summary drawn from many sources.

———.
Hind Swaraj and Other Writings
. Anthony J. Parel, ed. Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Hind Swaraj
(1st ed., 1910) is Gandhi’s essential summary of the principles on which his movement was based. It and other important pamphlets by Gandhi are available in separate editions as well (see
Resources
, below).

———.
Life and Works of Mahatma Gandhi
(“Multimedia Gandhi”). Publications Division, Govt. of India [1999]. CD-ROM with Gandhi’s collected works, including a comprehensive index, together with film and audio clips, hundreds of photos, and reference material. Available through GandhiServe and other sources (see
Resources
, below).

———.
The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi
. R. K. Prabhu and U. R. Rao, eds. Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1945; 2nd ed. 1967. Several reprints available, including one by Greenleaf Books, 1988.———.
Selected Works
. Shriman Narayan, ed. 6 vols. Ahmedabad:
Nava-jivan, 1968. A handy set that includes the
Autobiography
and
Satyagraha in South Africa
with other basic works like
Hind Swaraj
.

———.
Vows and Observances
. Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley Hills Press, 1999 (3rd ed. Navajivan, 1945, as
From Yeravda Mandir: Ashram Observances
). Good summaries of Gandhi’s principal practices and their rationale.

WOLPERT, STANLEY.
A New History of India.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977, 1982.

EASWARAN, EKNATH
.
Gandhi the Man: The Story of His Transformation
. 3rd ed. Tomales, Calif: Nilgiri Press, 1997 (1st ed., 1972). A personal overview focusing on Gandhi’s transformation and the sources of his spirituality.

F
ISCHER, LOUIS
.
Gandhi: His Life and Message for the World
. New York: Harper, 1950; New American Library, 1954. A particularly good starting point for studying Gandhi: brief, readable, and straightforward. Fischer makes good use of several long, personal interviews with Gandhi.

———.
The Life of Mahatma Gandhi
. New York: Harper, 1950; HarperCollins, 1983. Fischer’s fuller biography.

NANDA, B. R
.
Mahatma Gandhi: A Biography
. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1958. A balanced, authoritative biography by a respected scholar.

PYARELAL
[Pyarelal Nair].
Mahatma Gandhi: Last Phase, 1946–1498
. 2 vols. Navajivan, 1956–1958. Pyarelal was Gandhi’s personal secretary after Mahadev Desai’s death; this work covers Gandhi’s last years in detail, when Pyarelal was at Gandhi’s side.

———.
Mahatma Gandhi—The Early Phase
. 4 vols. Navajivan [1965–]. Especially good for the years in South Africa.

SHEEAN
, V
INCENT
.
Lead, Kindly Light
. New York: Random House, 1949. A thoughtful, personal assessment of Gandhi’s life and contribution to civilization by an American writer who was with Gandhi at the end of his life.

TENDULKAR, D. G
.
Mahatma: Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
. 8 vols. Publications Division, Govt. of India, 1951–1954. The other extreme from Fischer’s short biography. Tendulkar includes a great deal of source material, much of it from Gandhi himself, and often covers events in detail day by day, giving the reader a sense of being present as the story unfolds.

The Gospel of Selfless Action, or, The Gita According to Gandhi
. Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1946. Reprints include:
The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi
. John Strohmeier, ed. Introduction by Michael Nagler. Berkeley, Calif: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000. Gandhi’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita with an excellent introduction and additional notes by Mahadev Desai, which make the work available to a much wider and more critical audience.

The Bhagavad Gita
. Translated and with an introduction by Eknath Easwaran. Vintage Spiritual Classics. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. (Original ed.: Nilgiri Press, 1985)

Navajivan Trust (Navajivan Publishing House), Ahmedabad 380 014, Gujarat, India. Founded by Gandhi in 1929, Navajivan is the organization to which he assigned all his writings. Online at
http://navajivantrust.org
.

GandhiServe Foundation (Peter Rühe), Rathausstrasse 51a, 12105 Berlin, Germany. A vast resource for all things related to Gandhi, with solid connections in India and a global sales presence. Online at
http://www.gandhiserve.com
.

Greenleaf Books (Andrew Harvey), South Acworth, NH 03607, USA. A well-established resource for material on Gandhi and related topics, located on a small farm practicing Gandhian principles.

South Asia Books (Gerald Barrier), P.O. Box 502, Columbia, MO 65205, USA. Another knowledgeable and extensive resource for books by and about Gandhi, as well as India and South Asia generally. Online at
http://www.southasiabooks.com
.

L
OUIS
F
ISCHER
(1896–1970) was born and educated in Philadelphia. He was sent to Berlin by the New York
Post
in 1921, and during the next twenty-five years he covered many of the most important events in Europe and Asia. He spent several years in Russia and was in India in 1942, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, and 1958; he was an authority on both countries as well as on the Middle East. Outside of Europe and India, his travels took him to every part of the world, including Pakistan, Burma, Siam, Indo-China, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, and Alaska, interviewing and watching virtually every important world leader at work. He was the house guest of Mahatma Gandhi in 1942 and 1946. He knew Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Tito, and Nehru. Fischer edited
The Essential Gandhi
while at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

E
KNATH
E
ASWARAN
(1911–1999) was director of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation, which he founded in 1961 in Berkeley, California, after coming to the United States on the Fulbright exchange program as a professor of English literature in 1959. He is the author of many books on the practice of the spiritual life, including
Meditation
(1978),
Gandhi the Man
(1972), and
Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World
(1994). This preface was drawn from his many writings and lectures on Mahatma Gandhi.

J
OHN
F. T
HORNTON
is a literary agent, former book editor, and the coeditor, with Katharine Washburn, of
Dumbing Down
(1996) and
Tongues of Angels, Tongues of Men: A Book of Sermons
(1999). He lives in New York City.

S
USAN
B. V
ARENNE
is a New York City high-school teacher with a strong avocational interest in and wide experience of spiritual literature (M.A., The University of Chicago Divinity School; Ph.D., Columbia University).