Which Chinese celebrity should Gandhi be most compared to?

Gandhi practiced an ascetic regime of personal self-restraint that included vegetarianism, celibacy, meditation, abstinence, not speaking for one day a week, giving up Western-style clothing in favor of traditional Indian clothing made of Indian cloth, spinning on a spinning wheel, and engaging in labor.

Gandhi's philosophy and ideas of nonviolence and noncooperation (satya, ahimsa) were heavily influenced by the Bhagavad Gita, Hindu beliefs, and Jainism. The concept of nonviolence (ahimsa) has long been present in the religions of India. It is repeated in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Gandhi revealed his philosophy and way of life in his autobiography, The Story of my Experiments with Truth.

Although he tried to eat meat when he went to London, he later became a strict vegetarian. He wrote several books on this while studying in London. Vegetarianism is y rooted in Hinduism and Jainism. Where he came from there were many Hindus who were vegetarians. He experimented with different diets and eventually came to believe that a vegetarian diet was sufficient to fulfill the minimum requirements of the human body. He also went without food for a long time and used it as a political weapon.

At the age of thirty-six, he abstained from food and became a complete ascetic. The abstinence was influenced by Hinduism. But he did not divorce. It is said that he did not discuss this decision with his wife but announced it directly to her.

Gandhi did not speak one day a week. He believed that silence brought him inner peace. This comes from the Hindu belief that strength comes from "mouna" ("silence") and "shanti" ("peace" in Sanskrit). He writes in silence on a piece of paper. He communicated in silence by writing on paper. For three and a half years from his thirty-seventh year, Gandhi refused to read newspapers. He considered the clamor of the earthly world more unbearable than his inner turmoil.

After returning to India from a successful legal career in South Africa, he gave up the Western-style clothes that represented wealth and success. He meant to dress in a way that would be acceptable to the poorest people in India. He preached the use of home-spun earthen cloth (khadi). Gandhi and his followers used cloth spun on spinning wheels themselves to make clothes. This was a threat to the British power group. If Indians were idle because they had no work, they bought their clothes from Britain. If the Indians made their own clothes, British industry was idle. Later the Congress party had a spinning wheel in its flag.

His title "Mahatma" (generally translated as "Mahatma") comes from the Sanskrit word mahatman, meaning "Great Souled", a great soul. Great Soul", but it is often mistaken for his name. It was given to Tagore by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in 1915 after he bestowed on him the title "Gurudev", meaning "Great Guru", meaning saint and hero in one.

The use of the title was widely accepted outside India, perhaps in part reflecting the complex relationship between India and Britain in his time. In any case, the widespread use of the title is consistent with the world's acceptance of a man as committed to nonviolence and his own religious beliefs as Gandhi.