282 EARLIER INDIAN SPEECHES
is not merely a legal maxim, but it is a grand doctrine of life. It is the key to a proper practice of Ahimsa or love, It is for you, the custodians of a great faith, to set the fashion and show, by your preaching, sanctified by practice, that patriotism based on hatred c< killeth" and that patriotism based on love k< giveth life."
AHIMSA
The following letter from the pen of Mr. M. K. Gandhi appeared in The Modern Review, for October, 1916.
There seems to be no historical warrant for the belief that an exaggerated practice of Ahimsa synchroni- sed with our becoming bereft of manly virtues During the past 1,500 years we have, as a nation, given ample proof of physical courage, but we have been torn by internal dissensions and have been dominated by love of self instead of love of country. We have, that is to say, been swayed by the spirit of irreligion rather than of religion.
I do not know how far the charge of unmanlmess can be made good against the Jams. I hold no brief for them. By birth I am a Vaishnavite, and was taught Ahimsa in mv childhood. I have derived much reli- gious benefit from Jam religious works as I have from scriptures of the other great faiths of the world, I owe much to the living company of the deceased philosopher, Fajachand Kavi, who was a Jain by birth. Thus, though my views on Ahimsa are a result of my study of most ot the faiths of the world, they are now no longer dependent upon the authority of these works. They are a part of my life, and, if I suddenly discovered that the
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