Mahatma Gandhi's letter on Jesus to be sold for $50,000

A rare letter penned by Mahatma Gandhi about Jesus Christ is being sold for $50,000 in the United States.

Signed by Gandhi and dated April 6, 1926, the letter was addressed to Milton Newberry Frantz, a Christian religious elder in the US.

Jesus was "one of the greatest teachers of mankind," Gandhi wrote. The letter has been preserved in a private collection for decades and is being sold by the Pennsylvania-based Raab Collection for $50,000.

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The leader of India's non-violent civil disobedience movement against the British Raj, wrote this letter from his house- the Sabarmati ashram, which is located in the western state of Gujarat. He wrote it as a response to a friend's request to read a publication about Christianity.




Gandhi wrote: "Dear Friend, I have your letter. I am afraid it is not possible for me to subscribe to the creed you have sent me. The subscriber is made to believe that the highest manifestation of the unseen reality was Jesus Christ. In spite of all my efforts, I have not been able to feel the truth of that statement."

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"I have not been able to move beyond the belief that Jesus was one of the great teachers of mankind. Do you not think that religious unity is to be had not by a mechanical subscription to a common creed but by all respecting the creed of each?"

The Raab Collection said in a statement that their "research discloses no other letter of Gandhi mentioning Jesus to have ever reached the public market."

This article originally appeared in BBC.