Endnotes

  1. Literally freedom from birth and death. The nearest English equivalent is “salvation.” ↩

  2. Literally a period of four months. A vow of fasting and semi-fasting during the four months of the rains. The period is a sort of long Lent. ↩

  3. A sort of fast in which the daily quantity of food is increased or diminished according as the moon waxes or wanes. ↩

  4. Saptapadi are seven steps a Hindu bride and bridegroom walk together, making at the same time promises of mutual fidelity and devotion, after which the marriage becomes irrevocable. ↩

  5. Kansar is a preparation of wheat which the pair partake of together after the completion of the ceremony. ↩

  6. Ahimsa means literally not-hurting, nonviolence. ↩

  7. Brahmacharya means literally conduct that leads one to God. Its technical meaning is self-restraint, particularly mastery over the sexual organ. ↩

  8. Eleventh day of the bright and the dark half of a lunar month. ↩

  9. Laws of Manu the Hindu lawgiver. They have the sanction of religion. ↩

  10. One who observes brahmacharya, i.e. complete self-restraint. (See note 7.) ↩

  11. “Nirbal ke bala Rama”⁠—Refrain of Surdas’ famous hymn, “He is the help of the helpless, the strength of the weak.” ↩

  12. An Indian pulse. ↩

  13. A knowing one, a seer. ↩

  14. Throne ↩

  15. The famous word in Hindu philosophy which is nearly untranslatable, but has been frequently translated in English as “delusion,” “illusion.” ↩

  16. The prayer prescribed by the Koran. ↩

  17. The Bhagavad Gita, 2‒59. ↩

  18. Duties of the four fundamental divisions of Hindu Society. ↩

  19. See third paragraph of Chapter 13. ↩

  20. I.e. waiters. ↩

  21. Regarding the use of the word “volatile,” see note “In Justice to Her Memory,” Young India, 30th June, 1927. ↩

  22. Monks. ↩

  23. A place in Porbandar State noted locally for its coarse woollen fabrics. ↩

  24. Priests. ↩

  25. Gift. ↩

  26. Worship. ↩

  27. A light Indian bedstead. ↩