Abstract
We all need heroes who can awaken the best in us and inspire us to be what we can be. But what is the inspiration behind a hero’s own transformation? What are the formative infuences that shape a great leader? What alchemy makes great leaders and fashions a lump of clay into the great soul of a hero? After all, exemplary leaders do not just emerge suddenly from nowhere to take charge of the prevailing situation. They mature slowly and steadily in life’s laboratory through the interplay of myriad interactive processes of nature and nurture. Gandhi’s development as an exemplary leader is no exception.
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Notes
Victor Frankl, The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy, Revised and Expanded (New York: Vintage, 1986, 3rd edition), 67–68.
Dean Keith Simonton, Greatness: Who Makes History and Why (New York: Guilford Press, 1994), 153.
Quoted in Dilip Kumar Roy, Yogi Sri Krishna Prem (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1965), 10.
Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948), 30.
See: Arvind Sharma, Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press, 2013), 54–56.
J. M. Upadhyaya, ed., Gandhi as a Student (New Delhi: Publications Division, 1965), 3.
Mahatma Gandhi, Young India: 1919–1922 (Madras, India: S. Ganesan, 1922), 475.
Joseph J. Doke, M. K. Gandhi: Indian Patriot in South Africa (Varanasi, UP: Akhil Bharat Sarva Seva Sangh Prakashan, 1909), 77–78.
Haridas T. Muzumdar, Mahatma Gandhi: Peaceful Revolutionary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952), ix.
Mohandas. K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (New York: Dover Publications, 1983), 30. [emphasis added].
Swami Chinmayananda, Thousand Ways to the Transcendental: Vishnu Sahasranama (Bombay, India: Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 1980), 16.
Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Rajchandra Ravjibhai Mehta (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith, 2005), 4.
Cited in Raghavan Iyer, The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks, 2012), 80–81.
Advaita Vedanta lays down four disciplines for a seeker after self-knowledge, which are as follows: i. Discrimination—viveka—between the real and the unreal ii. Renunciation—vairdgya—of the unreal iii. Six Virtues/Treasures—satsampatti—of self-control iv. Longing for liberation—mumuksutva See: Pranipata Chaitanya, trans., and Satinder Dhiman, revised and edited with notes and an Introduction, Sri Sankara’s Vivekacuddmam: Devandgari Text, Transliteration, Word-for-Word Meaning, and a Lucid English Translation (Burbank, California: Metta House, 2012).
Krishna Kripalani, Gandhi: A Life (New Delhi: NBT, 2013, reprint), 60–61.
Thomas Weber, Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, reissue), 20.
Cited in Sudarshan Iyengar, Foreword in Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Leo Tolstoy (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith University, 2009), vi.
For all major correspondence between Gandhi and Tolstoy, see Satish Sharma, Gandhi’s Teachers: Leo Tolstoy (Ahmedabad: Gujarat Vidyapith University, 2009).
D. G. Tendulkar, Life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Vol. 1 (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1960), 122.
Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You (Radford, VA: Wilder Publications, 2008), 90.
Jonathan Hyslop, “Gandhi 1869–1915: The Transnational Emergence of a Public Figure,” in Judith M. Brown and Anthony Parel (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Gandhi (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 30–50.
Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi Before India (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2014), 3.
Henry David Thoreau, Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition (New York: Yale University Press, 2004), 287.
M. K. Gandhi, Introduction, in John Strohmeier, ed., The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Hills Books, 2000), 17–18.
Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 1: Our Oriental Heritage (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1942), 567.
Nataraja Guru, trans. and comm., The Bhagavad Gita: A Sublime Hymn of Dialectics (New Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 2008, 2nd edition), xiv.
K. A. Krishanswamy Iyer, Collected Works of K. A. Krishnaswamy Iyer (Holenarasipur: Adhyatma Prakash Karyalaya, 2006), 239.
S. Gambhirananda, tr., Bhagavad Gita with the Commentary ofSankaracarya (Calcutta, India: Advaita Ashrama, 1984), 302.
M. K. Gandhi, Preface to Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule. E-book retrieved November 1, 2014. url: http://www.soilandhealth.org/03sov/ 0303critic/hind%20swaraj.pdf
See Mark Thomson, Gandhi and His Ashrams (Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 1993).
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© 2015 Satinder Dhiman
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Dhiman, S. (2015). Gandhi’s Heroes: Guiding Lights on a Hero’s Journey. In: Gandhi and Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137492357_3
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