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Title: A Letter to a Hindu

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Commentator: M. K. Gandhi

Release Date: April 6, 2009 [EBook #7176]Last Updated: November 26, 2012

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LETTER TO A HINDU ***

Produced by Chetan Jain, and David Widger

A LETTER TO A HINDU

THE SUBJECTION OF INDIAITS CAUSE AND CURE

With an Introduction by M. K. GANDHI

Leo Tolstoy

Contents

INTRODUCTION

A LETTER TO A HINDU

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

INTRODUCTIONThe letter printed below is a translation of Tolstoy's letter written in Russian in reply to one from

the Editor of Free Hindustan. After having passed from hand to hand, this letter at last came into mypossession through a friend who asked me, as one much interested in Tolstoy's writings, whether Ithought it worth publishing. I at once replied in the affirmative, and told him I should translate itmyself into Gujarati and induce others' to translate and publish it in various Indian vernaculars.

The letter as received by me was a type-written copy. It was therefore referred to the author, whoconfirmed it as his and kindly granted me permission to print it.

To me, as a humble follower of that great teacher whom I have long looked upon as one of myguides, it is a matter of honour to be connected with the publication of his letter, such especially asthe one which is now being given to the world.

It is a mere statement of fact to say that every Indian, whether he owns up to it or not, has nationalaspirations. But there are as many opinions as there are Indian nationalists as to the exact meaning ofthat aspiration, and more especially as to the methods to be used to attain the end.

One of the accepted and 'time-honoured' methods to attain the end is that of violence. Theassassination of Sir Curzon Wylie was an illustration of that method in its worst and most detestableform. Tolstoy's life has been devoted to replacing the method of violence for removing tyranny orsecuring reform by the method of non-resistance to evil. He would meet hatred expressed in violenceby love expressed in self-suffering. He admits of no exception to whittle down this great and divinelaw of love. He applies it to all the problems that trouble mankind.

When a man like Tolstoy, one of the clearest thinkers in the western world, one of the greatestwriters, one who as a soldier has known what violence is and what it can do, condemns Japan forhaving blindly followed the law of modern science, falsely so-called, and fears for that country 'thegreatest calamities', it is for us to pause and consider whether, in our impatience of English rule, wedo not want to replace one evil by another and a worse. India, which is the nursery of the great faithsof the world, will cease to be nationalist India, whatever else she may become, when she goesthrough the process of civilization in the shape of reproduction on that sacred soil of gun factories andthe hateful industrialism which has reduced the people of Europe to a state of slavery, and all butstifled among them the best instincts which are the heritage of the human family.

If we do not want the English in India we must pay the price. Tolstoy indicates it. 'Do not resistevil, but also do not yourselves participate in evilin the violent deeds of the administration of thelaw courts, the collection of taxes and, what is more important, of the soldiers, and no one in theworld will enslave you', passionately declares the sage of Yasnaya Polyana. Who can question thetruth of what he says in the following: 'A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising twohundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these wordsmean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and ordinarypeople, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, capable, freedom-loving people?Do not the figures make it clear that not the English, but the Indians, have enslaved themselves?'

One need not accept all that Tolstoy sayssome of his facts are not accurately statedto realizethe central truth of his indictment of the present system, which is to understand and act upon theirresistible power of the soul over the body, of love, which is an attribute of the soul, over the brute

or body force generated by the stirring in us of evil passions.There is no doubt that there is nothing new in what Tolstoy preaches. But his presentation of the old

truth is refreshingly forceful. His logic is unassailable. And above all he endeavours to practise whathe preaches. He preaches to convince. He is sincere and in earnest. He commands attention.

[19th November, 1909] M. K. GANDHI

A LETTER TO A HINDUBy Leo TolstoyAll that exists is One. People only call this One by different names. THE VEDAS.God is love, and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. I JOHN iv. 16.God is one whole; we are the parts. EXPOSITION OF THE TEACHING OF THE VEDAS BY

VIVEKANANDA.

IDo not seek quiet and rest in those earthly realms where delusions and desires are engendered, for

if thou dost, thou wilt be dragged through the rough wilderness of life, which is far from Me.Whenever thou feelest that thy feet are becoming entangled in the interlaced roots of life, know that

thou has strayed from the path to which I beckon thee: for I have placed thee in broad, smooth paths,which are strewn with flowers. I have put a light before thee, which thou canst follow and thus runwithout stumbling. KRISHNA.

I have received your letter and two numbers of your periodical, both of which interest meextremely. The oppression of a majority by a minority, and the demoralization inevitably resultingfrom it, is a phenomenon that has always occupied me and has done so most particularly of late. I willtry to explain to you what I think about that subject in general, and particularly about the cause fromwhich the dreadful evils of which you write in your letter, and in the Hindu periodical you have sentme, have arisen and continue to arise.

The reason for the astonishing fact that a majority of working people submit to a handful of idlerswho control their labour and their very lives is always and everywhere the samewhether theoppressors and oppressed are of one race or whether, as in India and elsewhere, the oppressors areof a different nation.

This phenomenon seems particularly strange in India, for there more than two hundred millionpeople, highly gifted both physically and mentally, find themselves in the power of a small group ofpeople quite alien to them in thought, and immeasurably inferior to them in religious morality.

From your letter and the articles in Free Hindustan as well as from the very interesting writings ofthe Hindu Swami Vivekananda and others, it appears that, as is the case in our time with the ills of allnations, the reason lies in the lack of a reasonable religious teaching which by explaining the meaningof life would supply a supreme law for the guidance of conduct and would replace the more thandubious precepts of pseudo-religion and pseudo-science with the immoral conclusions deduced fromthem and commonly called 'civilization'.

Your letter, as well as the articles in Free Hindustan and Indian political literature generally,shows that most of the leaders of public opinion among your people no longer attach any significanceto the religious teachings that were and are professed by the peoples of India, and recognize nopossibility of freeing the people from the oppression they endure except by adopting the irreligiousand profoundly immoral social arrangements under which the English and other pseudo-Christiannations live to-day.

And yet the chief if not the sole cause of the enslavement of the Indian peoples by the English liesin this very absence of a religious consciousness and of the guidance for conduct which should flowfrom ita lack common in our day to all nations East and West, from Japan to England and Americaalike.

IIO ye, who see perplexities over your heads, beneath your feet, and to the right and left of you;

you will be an eternal enigma unto yourselves until ye become humble and joyful as children. Thenwill ye find Me, and having found Me in yourselves, you will rule over worlds, and looking outfrom the great world within to the little world without, you will bless everything that is, and findall is well with time and with you. KRISHNA.

To make my thoughts clear to you I must go farther back. We do not, cannot, and I venture to sayneed not, know how men lived millions of years ago or even ten thousand years ago, but we do knowpositively that, as far back as we have any knowledge of mankind, it has always lived in specialgroups of families, tribes, and nations in which the majority, in the conviction that it must be so,submissively and willingly bowed to the rule of one or more personsthat is to a very smallminority. Despite all varieties of circumstances and personalities these relations manifestedthemselves among the various peoples of whose origin we have any knowledge; and the farther backwe go the more absolutely necessary did this arrangement appear, both to the rulers and the ruled, tomake it possible for people to live peacefully together.

So it was everywhere. But though this external form of life existed for centuries and still exists,very earlythousands of years before our timeamid this life based on coercion, one and the samethought constantly emerged among different nations, namely, that in every individual a spiritualelement is manifested that gives life to all that exists, and that this spiritual element strives to unitewith everything of a like nature to itself, and attains this aim through love. This thought appeared inmost various forms at different times and places, with varying completeness and clarity. It foundexpression in Brahmanism, Judaism, Mazdaism (the teachings of Zoroaster), in Buddhism, Taoism,Confucianism, and in the writings of the Greek and Roman sages, as well as in Christianity andMohammedanism. The mere fact that this thought has sprung up among different nations and atdifferent times indicates that it is inherent in human nature and contains the truth. But this truth wasmade known to people who considered that a community could only be kept together if some of themrestrained others, and so it appeared quite irreconcilable with the existing order of society. Moreoverit was at first expressed only fragmentarily, and so obscurely that though people admitted its theoretictruth they could not entirely accept it as guidance for their conduct. Then, too, the dissemination of thetruth in a society based on coercion was always hindered in one and the same manner, namely, thosein power, feeling that the recognition of this truth would undermine their position, consciously orsometimes unconsciously perverted it by explanations and additions quite foreign to it, and alsoopposed it by open violence. Thus the truththat his life should be directed by the spiritual elementwhich is its basis, which manifests itself as love, and which is so natural to manthis truth, in orderto force a way to man's consciousness, had to struggle not merely against the obscurity with which itwas expressed and the intentional and unintentional distortions surrounding it, but also againstdeliberate violence, which by means of persecutions and punishments sought to compel men to acceptreligious laws authorized by the rulers and conflicting with the truth. Such a hindrance andmisrepresentation of the truthwhich had not yet achieved complete clarityoccurred everywhere:in Confucianism and Taoism, in Buddhism and in Christianity, in Mohammedanism and in yourBrahmanism.

IIIMy hand has sowed love everywhere, giving unto all that will receive. Blessings are offered

unto all My children, but many times in their blindness they fail to see them. How few there arewho gather the gifts which lie in profusion at their feet: how many there are, who, in wilfulwaywardness, turn their eyes away from them and complain with a wail that they have not thatwhich I have given them; many of them defiantly repudiate not only My gifts, but Me also, Me, theSource of all blessings and the Author of their being. KRISHNA.

I tarry awhile from the turmoil and strife of the world. I will beautify and quicken thy life withlove and with joy, for the light of the soul is Love. Where Love is, there is contentment and peace,and where there is contentment and peace, there am I, also, in their midst. KRISHNA.

The aim of the sinless One consists in acting without causing sorrow to others, although hecould attain to great power by ignoring their feelings.

The aim of the sinless One lies in not doing evil unto those who have done evil unto him.If a man causes suffering even to those who hate him without any reason, he will ultimately have

grief not to be overcome.The punishment of evil doers consists in making them feel ashamed of themselves by doing them

a great kindness.Of what use is superior knowledge in the one, if he does not endeavour to relieve his

neighbour's want as much as his own?If, in the morning, a man wishes to do evil unto another, in the evening the evil will return to

him.THE HINDU KURAL.Thus it went on everywhere. The recognition that love represents the highest morality was nowhere

denied or contradicted, but this truth was so interwoven everywhere with all kinds of falsehoodswhich distorted it, that finally nothing of it remained but words. It was taught that this highest moralitywas only applicable to private lifefor home use, as it werebut that in public life all forms ofviolencesuch as imprisonment, executions, and warsmight be used for the protection of themajority against a minority of evildoers, though such means were diametrically opposed to anyvestige of love. And though common sense indicated that if some men claim to decide who is to besubjected to violence of all kinds for the benefit of others, these men to whom violence is appliedmay, in turn, arrive at a similar conclusion with regard to those who have employed violence to them,and though the great religious teachers of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and above all of Christianity,foreseeing such a perversion of the law of love, have constantly drawn attention to the one invariablecondition of love (namely, the enduring of injuries, insults, and violence of all kinds without resistingevil by evil) people continuedregardless of all that leads man forwardto try to unite theincompatibles: the virtue of love, and what is opposed to love, namely, the restraining of evil byviolence. And such a teaching, despite its inner contradiction, was so firmly established that the verypeople who recognize love as a virtue accept as lawful at the same time an order of life based onviolence and allowing men not merely to torture but even to kill one another.

For a long time people lived in this obvious contradiction without noticing it. But a time arrived

when this contradiction became more and more evident to thinkers of various nations. And the old andsimple truth that it is natural for men to help and to love one another, but not to torture and to kill oneanother, became ever clearer, so that fewer and fewer people were able to believe the sophistries bywhich the distortion of the truth had been made so plausible.

In former times the chief method of justifying the use of violence and thereby infringing the law oflove was by claiming a divine right for the rulers: the Tsars, Sultans, Rajahs, Shahs, and other headsof states. But the longer humanity lived the weaker grew the belief in this peculiar, Godgiven rightof the ruler. That belief withered in the same way and almost simultaneously in the Christian and theBrahman world, as well as in Buddhist and Confucian spheres, and in recent times it has so fadedaway as to prevail no longer against man's reasonable understanding and the true religious feeling.People saw more and more clearly, and now the majority see quite clearly, the senselessness andimmorality of subordinating their wills to those of other people just like themselves, when they arebidden to do what is contrary not only to their interests but also to their moral sense. And so onemight suppose that having lost confidence in any religious authority for a belief in the divinity ofpotentates of various kinds, people would try to free themselves from subjection to it. Butunfortunately not only were the rulers, who were considered supernatural beings, benefited by havingthe peoples in subjection, but as a result of the belief in, and during the rule of, these pseudodivinebeings, ever larger and larger circles of people grouped and established themselves around them, andunder an appearance of governing took advantage of the people. And when the old deception of asupernatural and God-appointed authority had dwindled away these men were only concerned todevise a new one which like its predecessor should make it possible to hold the people in bondage toa limited number of rulers.

IVChildren, do you want to know by what your hearts should be guided? Throw aside your

longings and strivings after that which is null and void; get rid of your erroneous thoughts abouthappiness and wisdom, and your empty and insincere desires. Dispense with these and you willknow Love. KRISHNA.

Be not the destroyers of yourselves. Arise to your true Being, and then you will have nothing tofear. KRISHNA.

New justifications have now appeared in place of the antiquated, obsolete, religious ones. Thesenew justifications are just as inadequate as the old ones, but as they are new their futility cannotimmediately be recognized by the majority of men. Besides this, those who enjoy power propagatethese new sophistries and support them so skilfully that they seem irrefutable even to many of thosewho suffer from the oppression these theories seek to justify. These new justifications are termed'scientific'. But by the term 'scientific' is understood just what was formerly understood by the term'religious': just as formerly everything called 'religious' was held to be unquestionable simplybecause it was called religious, so now all that is called 'scientific' is held to be unquestionable. Inthe present case the obsolete religious justification of violence which consisted in the recognition ofthe supernatural personality of the God-ordained ruler ('there is no power but of God') has beensuperseded by the 'scientific' justification which puts forward, first, the assertion that because thecoercion of man by man has existed in all ages, it follows that such coercion must continue to exist.This assertion that people should continue to live as they have done throughout past ages rather thanas their reason and conscience indicate, is what 'science' calls 'the historic law'. A further 'scientific'justification lies in the statement that as among plants and wild beasts there is a constant struggle forexistence which always results in the survival of the fittest, a similar struggle should be carried onamong human beingsbeings, that is, who are gifted with intelligence and love; faculties lacking inthe creatures subject to the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest. Such is the second'scientific' justification.

The third, most important, and unfortunately most widespread justification is, at bottom, the age-oldreligious one just a little altered: that in public life the suppression of some for the protection of themajority cannot be avoidedso that coercion is unavoidable however desirable reliance on lovealone might be in human intercourse. The only difference in this justification by pseudo-scienceconsists in the fact that, to the question why such and such people and not others have the right todecide against whom violence may and must be used, pseudo-science now gives a different reply tothat given by religionwhich declared that the right to decide was valid because it was pronouncedby persons possessed of divine power. 'Science' says that these decisions represent the will of thepeople, which under a constitutional form of government is supposed to find expression in all thedecisions and actions of those who are at the helm at the moment.

Such are the scientific justifications of the principle of coercion. They are not merely weak butabsolutely invalid, yet they are so much needed by those who occupy privileged positions that theybelieve in them as blindly as they formerly believed in the immaculate conception, and propagatethem just as confidently. And the unfortunate majority of men bound to toil is so dazzled by the pompwith which these 'scientific truths' are presented, that under this new influence it accepts these

scientific stupidities for holy truth, just as it formerly accepted the pseudo-religious justifications; andit continues to submit to the present holders of power who are just as hard-hearted but rather morenumerous than before.

VWho am I? I am that which thou hast searched for since thy baby eyes gazed wonderingly upon

the world, whose horizon hides this real life from thee. I am that which in thy heart thou hastprayed for, demanded as thy birthright, although thou hast not known what it was. I am that whichhas lain in thy soul for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I lay in thee grieving becausethou didst not recognize me; sometimes I raised my head, opened my eyes, and extended my armscalling thee either tenderly and quietly, or strenuously, demanding that thou shouldst rebelagainst the iron chains which bound thee to the earth.

KRISHNA.So matters went on, and still go on, in the Christian world. But we might have hope that in the

immense Brahman, Buddhist, and Confucian worlds this new scientific superstition would notestablish itself, and that the Chinese, Japanese, and Hindus, once their eyes were opened to thereligious fraud justifying violence, would advance directly to a recognition of the law of loveinherent in humanity, and which had been so forcibly enunciated by the great Eastern teachers. Butwhat has happened is that the scientific superstition replacing the religious one has been accepted andsecured a stronger and stronger hold in the East.

In your periodical you set out as the basic principle which should guide the actions of your peoplethe maxim that: 'Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative, nonresistance hurtsboth Altruism and Egotism.'

Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills, and in it you too have the only method ofsaving your people from enslavement. In very ancient times love was proclaimed with specialstrength and clearness among your people to be the religious basis of human life. Love, and forcibleresistance to evil-doers, involve such a mutual contradiction as to destroy utterly the whole sense andmeaning of the conception of love. And what follows? With a light heart and in the twentieth centuryyou, an adherent of a religious people, deny their law, feeling convinced of your scientificenlightenment and your right to do so, and you repeat (do not take this amiss) the amazing stupidityindoctrinated in you by the advocates of the use of violencethe enemies of truth, the servants first oftheology and then of scienceyour European teachers.

You say that the English have enslaved your people and hold them in subjection because the latterhave not resisted resolutely enough and have not met force by force.

But the case is just the opposite. If the English have enslaved the people of India it is just becausethe latter recognized, and still recognize, force as the fundamental principle of the social order. Inaccord with that principle they submitted to their little rajahs, and on their behalf struggled againstone another, fought the Europeans, the English, and are now trying to fight with them again.

A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man freefrom superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirtythousand men, not athletes but rather weak and ordinary people, have subdued two hundred millionvigorous, clever, capable, and freedom-loving people? Do not the figures make it clear that it is notthe English who have enslaved the Indians, but the Indians who have enslaved themselves?

When the Indians complain that the English have enslaved them it is as if drunkards complainedthat the spirit-dealers who have settled among them have enslaved them. You tell them that they might

give up drinking, but they reply that they are so accustomed to it that they cannot abstain, and that theymust have alcohol to keep up their energy. Is it not the same thing with the millions of people whosubmit to thousands' or even to hundreds, of othersof their own or other nations?

If the people of India are enslaved by violence it is only because they themselves live and havelived by violence, and do not recognize the eternal law of love inherent in humanity.

Pitiful and foolish is the man who seeks what he already has, and does not know that he has it.Yes, Pitiful and foolish is he who does not know the bliss of love which surrounds him and which Ihave given him. KRISHNA.

As soon as men live entirely in accord with the law of love natural to their hearts and nowrevealed to them, which excludes all resistance by violence, and therefore hold aloof from allparticipation in violenceas soon as this happens, not only will hundreds be unable to enslavemillions, but not even millions will be able to enslave a single individual. Do not resist the evil-doerand take no part in doing so, either in the violent deeds of the administration, in the law courts, thecollection of taxes, or above all in soldiering, and no one in the world will be able to enslave you.

VIO ye who sit in bondage and continually seek and pant for freedom, seek only for love. Love is

peace in itself and peace which gives complete satisfaction. I am the key that opens the portal tothe rarely discovered land where contentment alone is found. KRISHNA.

What is now happening to the people of the East as of the West is like what happens to everyindividual when he passes from childhood to adolescence and from youth to manhood. He loses whathad hitherto guided his life and lives without direction, not having found a new standard suitable tohis age, and so he invents all sorts of occupations, cares, distractions, and stupefactions to divert hisattention from the misery and senselessness of his life. Such a condition may last a long time.

When an individual passes from one period of life to another a time comes when he cannot go on insenseless activity and excitement as before, but has to understand that although he has outgrown whatbefore used to direct him, this does not mean that he must live without any reasonable guidance, butrather that he must formulate for himself an understanding of life corresponding to his age, and havingelucidated it must be guided by it. And in the same way a similar time must come in the growth anddevelopment of humanity. I believe that such a time has now arrivednot in the sense that it has comein the year 1908, but that the inherent contradiction of human life has now reached an extreme degreeof tension: on the one side there is the consciousness of the beneficence of the law of love, and on theother the existing order of life which has for centuries occasioned an empty, anxious, restless, andtroubled mode of life, conflicting as it does with the law of love and built on the use of violence. Thiscontradiction must be faced, and the solution will evidently not be favourable to the outlived law ofviolence, but to the truth which has dwelt in the hearts of men from remote antiquity: the truth that thelaw of love is in accord with the nature of man.

But men can only recognize this truth to its full extent when they have completely freed themselvesfrom all religious and scientific superstitions and from all the consequent misrepresentations andsophistical distortions by which its recognition has been hindered for centuries.

To save a sinking ship it is necessary to throw overboard the ballast, which though it may oncehave been needed would now cause the ship to sink. And so it is with the scientific superstition whichhides the truth of their welfare from mankind. In order that men should embrace the truthnot in thevague way they did in childhood, nor in the one-sided and perverted way presented to them by theirreligious and scientific teachers, but embrace it as their highest lawthe complete liberation of thistruth from all and every superstition (both pseudo-religious and pseudo-scientific) by which it is stillobscured is essential: not a partial, timid attempt, reckoning with traditions sanctified by age and withthe habits of the peoplenot such as was effected in the religious sphere by Guru-Nanak, the founderof the sect of the Sikhs, and in the Christian world by Luther, and by similar reformers in otherreligionsbut a fundamental cleansing of religious consciousness from all ancient religious andmodern scientific superstitions.

If only people freed themselves from their beliefs in all kinds of Ormuzds, Brahmas, Sabbaoths,and their incarnation as Krishnas and Christs, from beliefs in Paradises and Hells, in reincarnationsand resurrections, from belief in the interference of the Gods in the external affairs of the universe,and above all, if they freed themselves from belief in the infallibility of all the various Vedas, Bibles,Gospels, Tripitakas, Korans, and the like, and also freed themselves from blind belief in a variety of

scientific teachings about infinitely small atoms and molecules and in all the infinitely great andinfinitely remote worlds, their movements and origin, as well as from faith in the infallibility of thescientific law to which humanity is at present subjected: the historic law, the economic laws, the lawof struggle and survival, and so onif people only freed themselves from this terrible accumulationof futile exercises of our lower capacities of mind and memory called the 'Sciences', and from theinnumerable divisions of all sorts of histories, anthropologies, homiletics, bacteriologics,jurisprudences, cosmographies, strategiestheir name is legionand freed themselves from all thisharmful, stupifying ballastthe simple law of love, natural to man, accessible to all and solving allquestions and perplexities, would of itself become clear and obligatory.

VIIChildren, look at the flowers at your feet; do not trample upon them. Look at the love in your

midst and do not repudiate it. KRISHNA.There is a higher reason which transcends all human minds. It is far and near. It permeates all

the worlds and at the same time is infinitely higher than they.A man who sees that all things are contained in the higher spirit cannot treat any being with

contempt.For him to whom all spiritual beings are equal to the highest there can be no room for

deception or grief.Those who are ignorant and are devoted to the religious rites only, are in a deep gloom, but

those who are given up to fruitless meditations are in a still greater darkness.UPANISHADS, FROM VEDAS.Yes, in our time all these things must be cleared away in order that mankind may escape from self-

inflicted calamities that have reached an extreme intensity. Whether an Indian seeks liberation fromsubjection to the English, or anyone else struggles with an oppressor either of his own nationality orof anotherwhether it be a Negro defending himself against the North Americans; or Persians,Russians, or Turks against the Persian, Russian, or Turkish governments, or any man seeking thegreatest welfare for himself and for everybody elsethey do not need explanations and justificationsof old religious superstitions such as have been formulated by your Vivekanandas, Baba Bharatis, andothers, or in the Christian world by a number of similar interpreters and exponents of things thatnobody needs; nor the innumerable scientific theories about matters not only unnecessary but for themost part harmful. (In the spiritual realm nothing is indifferent: what is not useful is harmful.) Whatare wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are notConstitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingeniousdevices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts ofconveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor new schools and universitieswith innumerable faculties of science, nor an augmentation of papers and books, nor gramophones andcinematographs, nor those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed artbut one thingonly is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is notstupefied by religious and scientific superstitionsthe truth that for our life one law is validthelaw of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind. Freeyour minds from those overgrown, mountainous imbecilities which hinder your recognition of it, andat once the truth will emerge from amid the pseudo-religious nonsense that has been smothering it: theindubitable, eternal truth inherent in man, which is one and the same in all the great religions of theworld. It will in due time emerge and make its way to general recognition, and the nonsense that hasobscured it will disappear of itself, and with it will go the evil from which humanity now suffers.

Children, look upwards with your beclouded eyes, and a world full of joy and love will discloseitself to you, a rational world made by My wisdom, the only real world. Then you will know whatlove has done with you, what love has bestowed upon you, what love demands from you.KRISHNA.

YASNAYA POLYANA.

December 14th, 1908.

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A LETTER TO A HINDUTHE SUBJECTION OF INDIA ITS CAUSE AND CUREWith an Introduction by M. K. GANDHI

Leo TolstoyContentsINTRODUCTION A LETTER TO A HINDU

INTRODUCTIONA LETTER TO A HINDUIIIIIIIVVVIVII