This Yogi Spent 76 Years Without Eating or Drinking Anything (Confirmed by Scientists)
Prahlad Jani — the starving monk who lived decades after decades without food and water.
“At midnight of the 8th day of Navratri, 3 goddesses (Ma Kali, Ma Lakshmi, and Ma Saraswati) appeared to me and bade me to follow. I consented, prepared myself, and asked: What about my food?
They each placed a finger on my lips and said: You need not to be concerned about food ever again. I was seven and from that day on, I stopped eating and drinking.” — Yogi Prahlad Janii
76 years without eating or drinking anything! Is that even believable? I mean, seriously, can any man survive like that? I don’t know about you, but I think I will be dead within just three days without food and water. But surprisingly, this man did the impossible. He lived decades after decades without eating and drinking anything.
Though he died on May 26, 2020, at the age of 91, he claimed to have lived eight decades without food and water. His name is Prahlad Jani, an Indian breatharian monk who claimed to have lived without eating and drinking since 1940.
This monk was known among his devotees as Chunriwale Mataji and had a huge mass following in Gujarat, India. His astonishing power of living without food and water made headlines in numerous world-renowned dailies and left people bewildered.
However, his extraordinary ability has been tested several times by researchers, scientists, and doctors. The result was jaw-dropping and, of course, unexplainable.
So, let’s know more about this man of mystery.
Prahlad Jani — The Starving Monk
Prahlad Jani was born in Charada village in then British India (now in Mehsana district, Gujarat, India) on 13 August 1929. When he was only seven, Jani did something unimaginable. He left his home and went to the jungle to live.
Later, at the age of 12, Jhe became a follower of the Hindu goddess Amba and started his spiritual journey. Amba or Durga is a major deity in Hinduism associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. So, the young Jani started worshiping Amba and decided to dress as a female devotee, wearing red sari-like attire, jewelry, and flowers in the hair. Due to his mother-like appearance, his followers started calling him Mataji (The Great Mother).
Being an ascetic, Jani lived in a cave in the forest in Gujarat and only visited his village and family once a year to celebrate the holy Navaratri festival. He didn’t require any food or water to survive since the age of 14 as the Goddess Amba was looking after him.
The surprising fact is — Jani believed that the goddess provided him with water through a hole in his palate and allowed him to live without food or drink.
He Went Through Several Tests and Observations by Doctors
Several studies and tests have been conducted on Prahlad Jani to verify his claims of being able to survive without food and water for years.
In 2003 and 2010, Jani went through two separate observational studies and medical scrutiny. Both the studies conducted with the involvement of Dr. Sudhir Shah, neurologist and head of Ahmedabad’s Sterling Hospitals, who had studied people claiming to have exceptional abilities.
Medical tests and observation in 2003
When Dr. Sudhir Shah heard for the first time about Prahlad Jani’s miraculous power of surviving without food and water, he was very skeptical. Then he contacted Jani and told him that he wanted to do a test to verify his claim.
When Jani came to the hospital, Dr. Sudhir told him, “You’ll be in the hospital under constant video monitoring, and if you’re true, I will put your good remarks to the world. And if you’re wrong, I will have to literally undress you, in the sense, it’s cheating.”
In November 2003, Dr. Sudhir Shah and other physicians at Sterling Hospitals, Ahmedabad, India, conducted the test and observation on Jani for 10 days. They kept him in a sealed room and did several medical scrutinies every single day.
Prahlad Jani was under constant monitoring. And to make the process vibrant and authentic, the researchers and doctors used —
- CCTV Camera
- Staff Vigilance
- Security
- Doctor on duty
- Monitoring panel
- Specialist doctors
- Hospital surveillance and more.
They even went on changing the camera person to make sure there is no cheating involved from any ends.
Jani was without any food and a single drop of liquid during the observation. And surprisingly, Jani passed no urine or stool during his stay, and his body condition was normal. The radiologist Dr. Sanjay Meta, who used to examine him, said, —
“I was doing his sonography twice a day for seven days. Morning, evening, morning, evening… and there’s ups and downs; one time, it’s 400ml, then 200ml, 300ml, urine. But at the end of the study, gradually, there was no urine in his urinary bladder. He was claiming that he was absorbing the urine in his body which was difficult to explain as far as the science is concerned.”
He also added that all his (Jani) organs were normal morphologically. His chest was clear, kidneys, liver, spleen, everything was normal. Everything was normal, and even there were not even changes because of the age.
Another surprising fact to note that a hole in the palate was found which is very unusual.
Knowing about the findings, metabolic expert Prof. Dr. Anton Luger said,
“I find it fascinating and absolutely incomprehensible. It’s completely beyond my imagination. I am seeing this for the first time, and if you had just told me, I would have said, I didn’t believe it. For ten days, he didn’t urinate, pass stool, or have anything to drink or eat, and they conducted laboratory tests on him. One would expect extremely high levels of uremic waste products. It’s an absolute bombshell.”
Medical tests in 2010 (by 35 researchers, scientists, and doctors)
In 2010, from 22 April until 6 May, a team of 35 researchers, scientists, and doctors from the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) and other organizations conducted another study where the mystic Prahlad Jani was kept in a room under constant observation without food or any drop of liquid for 15 days.
During this stay, Jani went through daily clinical examinations, blood tests, full-body scans, and round-the-clock surveillance using multiple CCTV cameras and personal observation. The same tests were once again conducted in Sterling Hospitals.
Can you guess the result? It was once again unbelievable and mind-bending. This is what Dr. Sudhir Shah said in a press conference after 108 hrs of Jani’s admission to the hospital:
“We’re all watching a miracle in the science or biology so to say. Because it’s already hundred and eight hours since Mataji’s (Prahlad Jani) admission into this hospital and he has not eaten anything, he has not drunk a little drop of any kind of liquid, but more importantly, he has not passed a drop of urine or stool.”
The initial tests also claimed that he has a brain resembling that of a 25-year-old, and his body has undergone a biological transformation due to years of yogic exercises.
After the fifteen days of medical tests and constant observation on Prahlad Jani, experts and doctors claimed with sheer astonishment that all reports of medical tests — cardiac, MRI of chest, abdomen, and spine, EEG reports — were normal.
This was beyond the understanding of the researchers, scientists, and doctors involved in this study. They were baffled and surprised.
Isn’t it incredible?
What Do You Think?
I think your head is spinning as mine with the thought that “Is that even possible to survive years after years without eating or drinking anything!” But several tests and testimonies from the experts left us with almost no doubt to believe that Prahlad Jani was a mysterious man who survived years after years without eating and drinking.
Yogis, monks, and spiritual personas often surprise us and question our knowledge and understanding of the unknown with their miracles. No doubt, this world is full of mystery, and there are many things to know and explore.
Let’s conclude this article with the remarks from Dr. Sudhir Shah. After the study, with great wonder and astonishment, he said, —
“ I mean, all possible things that could be done non-invisibly in this hi-fi corporate hospital with the help of so much involved consultants, most of us were trained abroad , we were all just scracthing our heads as to the greatest surprise we saw in our lifetime so far.”
Sources: Wikipedia, Light Documentary, NBC News, DNA India, Times of India, Vietnam Times, India.com.
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