- BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - A Jain monk ended a 365-day-long fast in south
India Friday, drinking half a cup of warm water mixed with cloves, saffron
and other herbs. ``Sri Sahajmuniji Maharaj decided to break his fast three
and a half hours after sunrise and did so in the presence of other monks,''
said Manakchand Kothari, secretary of the Jain religious organization where
the monk had fasted since May 1, 1997.
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- Sahajmuniji, 65, clad in white robes
and sitting cross-legged, said he undertook the fast for self-purification
that would spread peace and brotherhood and influence people to shun discrimination
and regional differences. During the fast he lived by drinking hot water
-- once after sunrise and once before sunset -- at the Jain religious center
in Bangalore.
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- Doctors say that, under normal circumstances,
two months is about as long as a human can survive without nourishment.
``It has been possible probably due to the combination of his will power
and his experience of fasting,'' said Dr Prakash Chand, a consultant radiologist
and ultrasonologist, who helped look after the monk's health. The two doctors
who examined Sahajmuniji Friday said his vital systems were normal, outside
of a pulse rate that rose after he consumed herbal water. Sukumar Shetty,
a general medicine consultant at Bangalore hospital, said Sahajmuniji's
long fast was ``very, very unusual and difficult to explain medically.''
``It may be possible for a few weeks to live only on water and practically
impossible to maintain normal health. Water has no calories and the body's
reserves of fat and protein cannot last for one year,'' Shetty said.
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- The doctors said Sahajmuniji weight had
dropped from 173 pounds before the fast to 95 pounds. ``Protein levels
have come down; his lipid profile shows a decrease in levels and his fat
deposits have been fully utilized. He is almost skin and bone now,'' the
doctors said. Leaders of political parties, including India's new Home
Minister L.K. Advani, were among thousands of devotees who visited the
monk to seek his blessings. At least 30 million Indians practice Jainism,
a religion that started about 1,800 years ago and preaches peace, celibacy
and austerity.
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- Monks say it centers on sacrifice and
self-mortification, contending that strict discipline offers the only escape
from a mundane world. The tightly-knit Jain community is dominated by a
rich business class with a large influence on India's economic activities.
Sahajmuniji held his first fast in 1964 in the northern Indian state of
Haryana. In 1994, he abstained from food for 201 days in Bombay, India's
commercial capital. Kothari said Sahajmuniji would gradually return to
a normal diet over two weeks, moving from water to milk and soft food before
consuming solid food.
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