Indian Who Inspired Gandhi

Little is known outside Gujarat about Mahatma Gandhi’s mentor Shrimad Rajchandra.

- Dnyanesh Jathar

Long before he became Mahatma, M.K. Gandhi faced a spiritual crisis in South Africa. His Christian and Muslim friends were pressing him to convert to their faiths. Gandhi wrote about his dilemma to his friend and mentor—a jeweller and diamond merchant in Bombay, whom he had met in 1891 upon his return from England.

Gandhi sent him 27 questions, and all the answers came promptly in a letter. The answers helped Gandhi resolve his doubts, and restore his faith in Hinduism.

The mentor was a Gujarati mystic, poet and philosopher named Shrimad Rajchandra, whom Gandhi mentions as Raychandbhai in his autobiography, The Story Of My Experiments with Truth. Raychandbhai was under 25 years old when Gandhi was introduced to him.

“He was a connoisseur of pearls and diamonds. No knotty business problem was too difficult for him,” Gandhi wrote. “But all these things were not the centre round which his life revolved. That centre was the passion to see God face to face.… I have since met many a religious leader or teacher. I have tried to meet the heads of various faiths, and I must say that no one else has ever made on me the impression that Raychandbhai did. His words went straight home to me.… In my moments of spiritual crisis, therefore, he was my refuge…. Though I could not place Raychandbhai on the throne of my heart as Guru,… he was, on many occasions, my guide and helper. Three moderns have left a deep impress on my life, and captivated me: Raychandbhai by his living contact; [Leo] Tolstoy by his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You; and [John] Ruskin by his Unto this Last.”