Gandhi Before Gandhi

Author(s): Bipin Doshi, Priti Shah
Publisher: Jain Academy Educational Research Center Promotion Trust Mumbai

Page 127

Authors' note
Mr. Virchand Gandhi in those days explained the important aspect of Eating habits, Science of breathing, Yoga and Meditation to West.
We commonly feel that these sciences are recently taught and received in West, however the truth is contrary. Let us examine the views of Mr. Virchand Gandhi expressed about 110 years back to the people of America and Europe.
GANDHI BEFORE GANDHIA
Indian Wisdom on Art of Living
The Science Of Eating
Four Dimensions of food habits-Indian view
This science may be treated not only from the standpoint of the Western scientists, but also from that of the Hindus. The scientists and chemists have
Rajasi
analyzed in so many ways the different articles of diet, and have divided Satvik them into two classes of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous foods, saying that one is important for the formation of the tissues, bones, blood, etc. and the other kind is necessary for the formation of other elements. They give the percentage of different elements in all the different articles of diet, and recommend some kinds and not others on that basis. While they categorise the food into physical elements, they do not consider the moral and spiritual elements. Our theory" divides food into three kinds: the first having the quality of passivity, the second of activity and the third of grossness. So, food is divided into three classes, the first giving quietness, the second activity or motion or heat, and the third is that class of food which gives the quality of sloth fullness (absence of motion, of the property of giving heat, or quietness). - Satvik, Tamasi & Rajasi.
Tamasi
The sacred book of the Hindus, the Bhagavad-Gita, gives certain rules with regards to diet, and different qualities of food. It says in describing the foods which belong to the first kind- "Such foods give us more vitality, more health, more prosperity, and we love others more from partaking of such foods. The second kind of food is that which gives activity, which creates desires, passions, motions, mental feelings, etc. These foods are those in which are found strong properties like salt, sour, hot and bitter. These are the foods of the second kind, and they arouse varied emotions in human
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