Prahlad Jani, also known as "Mataji", (born Chunriwala Mataji, 13 August 1929) is an Indian sadhu. He claims to have lived without food and water since 1940, and says that the goddess Amba sustains him.
Born Chunriwala Mataji, Jani grew up in Charada village in Mehsana district. According to Jani, he left his home in Rajasthan at the age of seven, and went to live in the jungle.
At the age of 11, Jani underwent a religious experience and became a follower of the Hindu goddess Amba. From that time, he chose to dress as a female devotee of Amba, wearing a red sari-like garment, jewellery and crimson flowers in his shoulder-length hair. Jani is commonly known as Mataji ("[a manifestation of] The Great Mother"). Jani believes that the goddess provides him a liquid sustenance or "nectar," which drops down through a hole in his palate, allowing him to live without food or water.
Since the 1970s, Jani has lived as a hermit in a cave in the rainforest near the Gujarati temple of Ambaji, awakening at 4am each day and spending most of his time meditating.
Two observational studies of Jani have been conducted, one in 2003 and one in 2010, both involving Sudhir Shah, a neurologist at the Sterling Hospitals in Ahmedabad, India, who had studied people claiming to have exceptional spiritual abilities, including other fasters such as Hira Ratan Manek. In both cases the investigators confirmed Jani's ability to survive healthily without food and water during the testing periods, although neither study was submitted to a scientific journal. When questioned six days into the 2010 experiment, the DRDO spokesperson announced that the study's findings would be "confidential" until results were established, and a further official press release by the team stated that any inside analysis information may be disclosed only at the discretion of the principal investigator, DIPAS.[citation needed] Uninvolved doctors and other critics have questioned the validity of the studies and stated their belief that, although people can survive for days without food or water, it is not possible to survive for years.Especially, since glucose, a substrate critical to brain function, isn't provided. The veracity of Mataji's claims have also never been independently confirmed with all tests being indigenously conducted.
Dr. Michael Van Rooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, dismissed the observation results as "impossible", observing that the bodies of profoundly malnourished people quickly consume their own body's resources, resulting in liver failure, tachycardia and heart strain. A spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association remarked that the human body could survive on water alone, although not healthily, and that a person could not expect to meet their body's vitamin and mineral requirements without ingesting food. Nutrition researcher Peter Clifton also disagreed with study results, accusing the research team of "cheating" by allowing Jani to gargle and bathe, and stating that a human of average weight would die after "15 to 20 days" without water. People who avoid food and water to emulate mystical figures often die.Sanal Edamaruku characterized the experiment as a farce for allowing Jani to move out of the CCTV cameras' field of view, claiming that video footage showed Jani was allowed to receive devotees and to leave the sealed test room for sunbathing. Edamaruku also said that the gargling and bathing activities were insufficiently monitored. Edamaruku was denied access to the site where the tests were conducted in both 2003 and 2010, and accuses Jani of having "influential protectors" responsible for denying him permission to inspect the project during its operation, despite having been invited to join the test during a live television broadcast. The Indian Rationalist Association observed that individuals making similar claims in the past have been exposed as frauds.
In September 2010, Dr Shah announced that scientists from Austria and Germany had offered to visit India to carry out further research on Jani, and scientists from the United States had also offered to join the research. Jani has expressed interest in cooperating in further investigations.
The documentary video
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