On Wednesday, 144th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi will be celebrated across the country. However, very few people know that Gandhiji was first time called ‘Mahatma’ in a small function organised by the royal physician of erstwhile Gondal State in Saurashtra Peninsula. More interestingly, heritage value of the venue where Gandhiji was called ‘Mahatma’ is being kept intact.
On January 27, 1915 Gondal Rasasala, an Ayurveda Pharmacy owned by the royal physician of erstwhile Gondal State had a special guest. A grand reception was arranged for MK Gandhi and his wife Kasturba, who returned from South Africa in July 1914. No one knew that the function would become milestone in the life history of Gandhiji.
In the welcome speech, the founder of Rasasala Jivram Shastri, who was also royal physician of the erstwhile princely State Gondal, first time termed Gandhi as ‘Mahatma’ with reference to historic movement against apartheid in South Africa from 1908 to 1914. This epithet ‘Mahatma’ later became a universally accepted synonym for Gandhiji and he has been immortalized as ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ in the world history.
The common belief is Rabindranath Tagore first called Bapu as Mahatma. Dates go back to July 1915. However, around seven years back Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad came with a document that revealed that Gandhiji was referred to as Mahatma by the founder of Gondal Rasasala. The document was presented by Gandian Manubhai Parekh describing about a public function organized much before Tagore calling Bapu as Mahatma in January in the same year.
Medicines manufactured at Rasasala were exported to South Africa at Tolstoy Farm, around 35 km from, Johannesburg, where Gandhi and his followers were staying for Satyagraha campaign during 1910 to 1913. Shastri’s septuagenarian son Acharya Ghanshyamji has kept the essence of pharmacy alive. “We have hardly made some changes in the process of making Ayurvedic medicines. Unlike other pharmacy, we have decided not to plunge into bulk manufacturing; rather most of the processes are still manual,” he said.
Doors for the manufacturing area of the pharmacy remain open for even unknown visitors. When the unit was redesigned in 2003, Ghanshyamji’s son Dr. Ravidarshan made it a point to design the unit in such a way that visitors can have a look at traditional manufacturing process without disturbing the men at work. Still waste woods and cow dung are being used as fuel for special processes.
