Content deleted Content added
→Brahmacharya: abstinence from sex and food: Changed misrepresented source. it clearly states this in reference to Manu only. |
→Brahmacharya: abstinence from sex and food: Moved to more appropriate place. Source clearly states he was asking them if the experiments were wrong as opposed to if it would be wrong to them. |
||
Line 384:
Gandhi's experiment with abstinence went beyond sex, and extended to food. He consulted the [[Jain]] scholar Rajchandra, whom he fondly called Raychandbhai.<ref>{{cite book|author=Thomas Weber|title=Gandhi as Disciple and Mentor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P8nC80pG4GIC&pg=PA33 |year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-45657-9|page=33}}</ref> Rajchandra advised him that milk stimulated sexual passion. Gandhi began abstaining from cow's milk in 1912, and did so even when doctors advised him to consume milk.<ref name="Gandhi1957">{{cite book|author=Mahatma Gandhi|title=An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VsMLYjEsyaEC |accessdate=23 November 2016|volume= 39|year= 1957|publisher=Beacon Press|isbn=978-0-8070-5909-8|page=262}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Sankar Ghose|title= Mahatma Gandhi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C |year=1991|publisher= Allied Publishers|isbn=978-81-7023-205-6|pages=66–67}}</ref> According to Sankar Ghose, Tagore described Gandhi as someone who did not abhor sex or women, but considered sexual life as inconsistent with his moral goals.<ref name=ghose354>{{cite book|author=Sankar Ghose|title= Mahatma Gandhi |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=5l0BPnxN1h8C |year= 1991|publisher= Allied Publishers|isbn= 978-81-7023-205-6|pages=354–357}}</ref>
Gandhi tried to test and prove to himself his ''brahmacharya''.
According to Sean Scalmer, Gandhi in his final year of life was an ascetic, looked ugly and a sickly skeletal figure, already caricatured in the Western media.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sean Scalmer|title=Gandhi in the West: The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oDcXJxRR4TUC&pg=PA16|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=12–17 with footnotes|deadurl=no|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101071616/https://books.google.com/books?id=oDcXJxRR4TUC&pg=PA16|archivedate=1 January 2016|df=dmy-all}}</ref> In February 1947, he asked his confidants such as Birla and Ramakrishna if it was wrong for him to experiment his ''brahmacharya'' oath.<ref name=ghose354/> Gandhi's public experiments, as they progressed, were widely discussed and criticised by his family members and leading politicians. However, Gandhi said that if he would not let Manu sleep with him, it would be a sign of weakness.<ref name="jadadams2012" /> Nirmalkumar Bose, Gandhi's Bengali interpreter, for example criticised Gandhi, not because Gandhi did anything wrong, but because Bose was concerned about the psychological effect on the women who participated in his experiments.<ref name=majumdar224/> Veena Howard states Gandhi's views on brahmacharya and religious renunciation experiments were a method to confront women issues in his times.<ref name=howard2013>{{cite journal |author=Howard, Veena R. |year=2013|title=Rethinking Gandhi's celibacy: Ascetic power and women's empowerment|journal=[[Journal of the American Academy of Religion]] |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=130, 137, 130–161 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi= 10.1093/jaarel/lfs103 }}</ref>
====Untouchability and castes====
| |||