Gandhi’s Concept of Conscience/Antarātmā Revisited: Exploring His Cardinal Principle in Trilingual Texts

Abstract

This article explores the nature and genealogy of Mohandas K. Gandhi’s concept of conscience/antarātmā (inner soul/spirit), the cardinal principle of his religious politics. Much previous scholarship, solely relying upon English materials, has explained the nature of Gandhi’s concept of conscience in relation to Western and Christian Protestant traditions. By chronologically examining his lifelong discourse on conscience expressed in English and antarātmā in Gujarati and Hindi writings, this article shows that: (1) Gandhi developed a distinct variant of hybrid thought that was essentially different from the prevalent negative conception of “guilty conscience” in the modern West by integrating ideas of conscience and ātmā/ātman; (2) since the notion of ātmā was intimately related to the ascetic bodily discipline (brahmacarya), Gandhi identified the essence of his satyāgraha campaign as ātmabaḷ (the force of ātmā) and believed that taking the vow of brahmacarya could enhance one’s vital energy (vīrya); and (3) as Gandhi reached his last years, and the most controversial phase of his intellectual evolution, he developed a new understanding of an inner voice/antarno avāj whose nature was “mystical” (gūḍh), and thereby difficult even for him to articulate in any language.