Michaël de Saint Cheron – författare

This book is not just another biography of Gandhi. It is valuable because it offers us a French view--- and Jewish too perhaps---- of a man and times so familiar to us and yet which acquires another dimension as it is represented through another culture.

There are eloquent accounts in this book of philosophers like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda who influenced Gandhi’s thought and life. Rather than political events, Michaël de Saint-Chéron holds up the force and courage of a man who became a prophet in a blood-thirsty century.

Interestingly, the author points out that it is only India and the Middle East which has given the world the two mother religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Neither China nor Europe, two major cultures, have produced a world religion. The book is further enriched by a discussion on Hindu mysticism and the concept of ‘love’ in Judaism.

The author also looks at how Gandhi has played a major role on shaping French intellectuals such as Andre Malraux. At the end however, a central dilemma, and a painful one to the work, concerns Gandhi’s silence on the Holocaust.

This book will be of interest to scholars working on Gandhian studies, Indian philosophy and Judaism, and to readers of politics, ethics and history.

This book is not just another biography of Gandhi. It is valuable because it offers us a French view--- and Jewish too perhaps---- of a man and times so familiar to us and yet which acquires another dimension as it is represented through another culture.

There are eloquent accounts in this book of philosophers like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda who influenced Gandhi’s thought and life. Rather than political events, Michaël de Saint-Chéron holds up the force and courage of a man who became a prophet in a blood-thirsty century.

Interestingly, the author points out that it is only India and the Middle East which has given the world the two mother religions of Hinduism and Judaism. Neither China nor Europe, two major cultures, have produced a world religion. The book is further enriched by a discussion on Hindu mysticism and the concept of ‘love’ in Judaism.

The author also looks at how Gandhi has played a major role on shaping French intellectuals such as Andre Malraux. At the end however, a central dilemma, and a painful one to the work, concerns Gandhi’s silence on the Holocaust.

This book will be of interest to scholars working on Gandhian studies, Indian philosophy and Judaism, and to readers of politics, ethics and history.

Au XXe siècle, au milieu des révolutions, des totalitarismes de droite ou de gauche, l''Inde apporta au monde la seule révolution basée sur une non-violence fondamentale : l''ahimsâ (mot sanskrit signifiant en particulier l''action de ne causer de dommage à personne, d''où l''idée de non-violence), constitué en principe absolu par un homme seul, contribua à libérer l''Inde de l''impérialisme britannique douze ans avant la décolonisation en France et l''indépendance de l''Algérie. Comment Gandhi, que Rabindranath Tagore appela Mahatma, la « grande âme », devint-il un maître spirituel et un chef politique pour sa patrie ? Il ne s''agit pas ici d''une nouvelle biographie, à strictement parler, mais plutôt d''une anti-biographie spirituelle, intellectuelle, voire politique. Ni christianisant, ni psychanalytique, cet essai tente d''approcher la figure complexe de l''apôtre de la non-violence. Mais toute intellectuelle et spirituelle qu''elle veut être, cette étude ne peut ni ne veut s''abstraire de l''Histoire dans laquelle le Mahatma est entré de plain-pied. S''il faut bien suivre une certaine chronologie de sa formation spirituelle autant que de juriste puis de héraut d''une cause, ce n''est pas l''histoire des faits politiques que nous retiendrons ici, mais plutôt la force d''âme et le courage d''un homme devenu prophète en ce siècle sanglant. Ce livre se clôt par une étude comparée de la mystique hindoue avec la Kabbale