Born to a devout Jain family in Rajastan, India, in 1935, Satish Kumar became a Jain monk at the age of nine. At 18, influenced by the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi about land reform and non-violent action, he became a disciple of Vinoba Bhave, who was in turn a celebrated disciple of Gandhi. At 27, inspired by Bertrand Russell’s campaign of civil disobedience against nuclear weapons, he set out with a companion to walk to the capitals of the four then-existing nuclear powers – France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States – in a “pilgrimage for peace.”