A collection of 688 handwritten reflections by Mahatma Gandhi has sold for £1.2 million at an auction in India, setting a record for an Indian historical document sold at auction, according to The Independent.
The handwritten messages were addressed to Anand T Hingorani, a close associate of Gandhi and a fellow participant in India’s independence movement.
They were written over almost two years, from 20 November 1944 to 10 October 1946, and were later compiled into a book called A Thought for the Day, according to auction house Saffronart.
The circumstances in which they were written were deeply personal; Hingorani’s wife Vidya had died, and he shared his loneliness and grief with Gandhi while undergoing nature-cure treatment for deafness, according to the Hingorani family.
Gandhi responded by writing him a thought each day, turning a private act of consolation into one of the most extensive surviving records of their relationship.
“Gandhi responded by setting aside time each day to write a personal thought. What began as a personal exchange soon evolved into a collaborative project,” Minal Vazirani, co-founder and president of Saffronart, told The Indian Express.
“While Gandhi authored each reflection, Hingorani became the recipient, organizer and transcriber, ultimately preparing the writings for publication,” she said.
The 688 entries cover many of the subjects that occupied Gandhi throughout his life, including truth, ahimsa or non-violence, brahmacharya (self-control), non-possession, fearlessness, religious equality, prayer, service, labor, duty, silence, conscience and self-realization.
A group of nine letters from 1930 and 1931 concerns Anand and Vidya Hingorani’s marriage, including parental opposition, financial independence, reconciliation within the family and Gandhi’s views on self-restraint and domestic obligations.
The wider collection was preserved by the Hingorani family across generations and was offered as an 86-lot sale by Saffronart under the title Gandhi: From the Collection of Anand T Hingorani.
