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The Jaina Philosophy has a scientific basis, he said, and it is noteworthy that he advocated vegetarianism in a country which was steeped in nonvegetarianism. The eclectic outlook of Virchand Gandhi is evident when on the one hand he talks about the science of eating and at the other extreme it is astral vision that captured his imagination.
Virchand Gandhi points out that no reasoning intellectual, intelligent person would stick to habit when he realizes these things; he comes to the conclusion that animal food is not designed for human beings. It certainly becomes a cause of many diseases. Cancer is caused by meat-eating. The hurts of vegetarians are healed sooner than those of flesh-eaters. Small-pox is considered a very dangerous disease in this country, but the people in India have not the slightest fear of this epidemic at all. If a man falls ill of this disease his friends will come to him every day, and do not catch the disease, and they are never afraid of these things. It is only when the temperature goes up to 110 degrees that you will find any epidemic in India, and then cholera is the result. As an experience in daily life, those who eat meat know that this food demands the intoxicating stimulants of drink, and a necessity arises not only for that kind of food, but for drink also. People who live on simple food never desire these intoxicants.
Emphasizing on vegetarianism, Virchand Gandhi says that after considering all these things, our philosophers have given us the rule that it is not the best plan to eat animal food. There are minor objections to all these rules; one is that all persons cannot live on cereals; but there are other vegetables and fruits, and in the case of fruits almost all of these are in such a condition that they can be digested at once and do not require such work of the stomach, and fruit would be one of the best foods as it has the first quality of matter passivity, purity and quietness. These qualities are to be found to a large extent in almost all fruits and substantial foods like wheat.
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