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Mahatma Gandhi:
The Man Who Became One with the Universal Being written by Romain Rolland |
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| This book contains a frank and illuminating commentary on Gandhiji and his ideals by the eminent French philosopher, Romain Rolland. Romain Rolland, recipient of the 1915 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born into a middle-class family in Clamecy, France. His father was a lawyer. He was educated at the Ecole Normale Supe rieure and the Sorbonne. He later worked as a professor at the Ecole Normale in Paris and the Sorbonne. |
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| As a great European and contemporary of the
Mahatma, his views have a special value. The appraisal and assessment of
Gandhiji's ideals of truth and no n-violence and of the strategy of passive resistance
against the mighty British Empire is of particular interest as it comes
from a brilliant mind of the materialist-oriented West. Long before the
world bestowed renown on Gandhiji for his political sagacity, Romain Rolland
probed and made known to humanity the spiritual greatness of the man. The
two understood each other fully and the great scholar from the West found
and drew inspiration from the well-springs of that highly cultivated and
dedicated soul. While expressing his admiration for Gandhiji's ethical approach
to religion and politics and his readiness to sacrifice everything for the
sake of truth, Romain Rolland does not hesitate to quote literally from
Tagore and Andrews, who criticised some of Gandhiji's political decisions.
He also brings out how British policy forced Gandhiji to switch over from
an attitude of loyal co-operation with Great Britain to that of non-violent
non- co-operation. Readers will find the book a sustained interest throughout.
Romain Rolland published his first book, HISTOIRE DE L'OPERA EN EUROPE AVANT LULLY ET SCARLATTI, in 1895. He is most famous for his ten volume work, JEAN-CHRISTOPHE, which was published between 1904 and 1912. Rolland was born Jan. 29, 1866, into a middle-class family in Clamecy, France. At age 14, Rolland went to Paris to study and found a society in spiritual disarray. He was admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure, lost his religious faith, discovered the writings of Benedict de Spinoza and Leo Tolstoy, and developed a passion for music. He studied history (1889) and received a doctorate in art (1895), after which he went on a two-year mission to Italy at the Ecole Francaise de Rome. Romain Rolland was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1915 |
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