THE CELIBATE

Gandhi’s experiments with his diet were closely connected to the brahmacharya vow he took in 1906. In this, he says he was predominantly influenced by Raychand, a jeweller and an austere Jain mystic and teacher, who Gandhi met in Bombay after he returned from England in 1891 and who became his spiritual mentor till his death in 1901. Raychand himself had taken a brahmacharya vow when he was still married.

There were several reasons why Gandhi decided to turn celibate – he did not want to have more children (“It became my conviction that procreation and the consequent care of children were inconsistent with public service… if I wanted to devote myself to the service of the community…I must relinquish the desire for children and wealth and live the life of a vanaprastha – of one retired from household cares.”), he wanted to exercise self-control and conquer lust. And for Gandhi, the first essential in observance of the vow was control of the palate, since brahmacharya meant “control of the senses in thought, word and deed.” A brahmachari’s food should be limited, simple, spiceless and, if possible, uncooked. After six years of experiments, Gandhi concluded that the brahmachari’s ideal food is fresh fruits and nuts.

He further wrote, “As an external aid to brahmacharya, fasting is as necessary as selection and restriction in diet. So overpowering are the senses that they can be kept under control only when they are completely hedged in on all sides…It is common knowledge that they are powerless without food, and so fasting undertaken with a view to control the senses is, I have no doubt, very helpful...” He recognised that a fasting man may continue to be swayed by passion. But he realised that “extinction of sexual passion is as a rule impossible without fasting...” Gandhi’s biographers have written about how little he ate. For Gandhi, his frugal diet not only helped fulfil his brahmacharya vow, it also gave him the energy he needed to do his public work.