In order to save time and cut expenditure, as the book will be highly subsidised, the trust has decided to use the Sanskrit translation of the book by Pandit Hosakere Nagappa Sastri. Pandit Sastri is a former professor of Sanskrit and Kannada in Khalsa College, Mumbai.

“To ensure that the book is error-free, the trust will prepare negative films directly from Sastri’s books and get it printed,” said Jitendra Desai, former chancellor of the Gujarat Vidyapeeth, now heading the Navajivan Trust.

“Although good Sanskrit scholars are available, who can go through the proofs if they are typed afresh for printing, there is always a chance of mistakes creeping into it and we can’t take chances with the Mahatma’s autobiography,” Desai added.

The trust has already conducted a survey and hopes that 1,000 copies of the book will be sold easily, as there are a large number of Sanskrit schools and Sanskrit departments in different universities and colleges across the country. “If the response is good, we will come out with another edition and print more copies,” he said. The 328-page book is priced at Rs 30.

Originally written in Gujarati and first published in 1927 by Navajivan Trust, it was written at the instance of Swami Anand, a close associate of Gandhi.

The book sheds light on Gandhi’s life from his birth in 1869 up to 1921.

“My life from this point onwards has been so public that there is hardly anything about it that people do not know,” Gandhi writes in the last chapter of the book. The autobiography is already available in 12 Indian languages and has altogether sold 27 lakh copies so far.