Cow dung is, according to Vedic injunction, is pure. In India it is actually used as antiseptic. In villages especially, there is large quantity of cow dung, and they're, all over the house they have smeared to make the house antiseptic. And actually after smearing cow dung in your room, when it is dried, you'll find refreshed, everything antiseptic. It is practical experience. And one Dr. Ghosh, a great chemist, he examined cow dung, that why cow dung is so much important in the Vedic literature? He found that cow dung contains all the antiseptic properties. In Āyur-veda, cow dung dried and burned into ashes is used as toothpowder. It is very antiseptic toothpowder. Similarly, there are many things, many injunctions in the Vedas, which may apparently appear as contradiction, but they are not contradiction. They are on experience, on transcendental experience.
Toothpaste
Lectures
Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures
Conversations and Morning Walks
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: ...900,000 forms of life in the water. How many they have seen? They are giving pictures. (break) Calcium carbonate, oil wintergreen, and soap powder, powder hard soap, and I will make toothpaste.
Prabhupāda: ...that toothpaste within the box?
Harikeśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is old. The new one, where it is? Now finished?
Harikeśa: No, they are also in the shaving kit.
Prabhupāda: Oh. So the new one it is all dried up with glycerin. If they are finished, then prepare the same formula. (break)
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: I can give you formula. That toothpaste formula, that is my invention. It's working very nicely.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Can we have it? What if we can't find nim leaves here?
Prabhupāda: No, we can supply nim leaves from India, any amount, from Vṛndāvana.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Nim leaves from Vṛndāvana is unique, nobody can imitate us.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Nim leaves we can export from India. In the United Provinces there is ample nim trees. That time I shall give you instruction also.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: We will start, Śrīla Prabhupāda. This is better than..., this is easier than restaurant.
Prabhupāda: Now you consider amongst yourselves. I have no difficulty, I have given direction, "Do like that." Now what you'll do, that is up to you. So far giving help and directions, that you will get perfect, there is no doubt about it. That you will get. How to manage, how to get ingredients, everything you'll get. Because I have to say only, you have to do. That's all. So that will be all right. Now decide. That will be very nice or very effective. Whatever we shall prepare, it will be very effective. So if there is market, why not? Introduce. I think there will be market because this country is undeveloped.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: So if you will give us the formulas, we can learn from him the formulas for toothpaste?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: For toothpaste and what else?
Prabhupāda: You remember it?
Harikeśa: Hm...
Ātreya Ṛṣi: No, exactly?
Prabhupāda: But toothpaste, you require collapsible tube.
Harikeśa: It was better in the bottles. In a tube it just doesn't come out.
Prabhupāda: No, that will come out. The powder must be made very fine. Otherwise, it will not come out.
Hari-śauri: If it's pulverized with a machine it comes out.
Harikeśa: Yes, if there's a machine it would be nice.
Prabhupāda: Very fine powder.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: What about if we served it in a different shape. Tube is common. If we make it a little different it would be more attractive.
Prabhupāda: That you have to think, how it will be attractive here. Otherwise paste, put into the collapsible tube, then it becomes complete. The formula is there and everything. You don't take... Simply it has to be made very fine pulverized.
Harikeśa: And it lasts for a long time, because the toothpaste Prabhupāda is using now I made in last December, last December.
Ātreya Ṛṣi: Are you happy with it, Śrīla Prabhupāda? Is it good? He made it good?
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. No, it was not made good because... It is not his fault, the powder was not very fine. But it will be better, nice, when the powders are very, very finely pulverized.
Harikeśa: It took two weeks to make.
Prabhupāda: Two weeks? Why? Because the ingredients were not...?
Harikeśa: No, because your mustard oil, no one liked to taste it, and then you changed it to mustard seeds.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Mustard seed also can be exported from India. In the Mathurā district there is sufficient mustard seed.
Hari-śauri: Yellow mustard seeds.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Mustard seeds and instead of chalk powder we mix nim powder. Mustard seed, nim powder.
Harikeśa: Calcium carbonate.
Prabhupāda: And salt. Calcium carbonate means...? Oh, calcium, instead of calcium carbonate, let it be nim. It will be very effective.
Harikeśa: I think the taste will be horrible.
Prabhupāda: Yes, taste will be... (laughter)
Harikeśa: No one will use it.
Prabhupāda: Yes, that is...
Harikeśa: I saw they make this other toothpaste with sucrose. The second biggest ingredient is sucrose on the karmī toothpaste.
Prabhupāda: Sucrose? What is that sucrose?
Harikeśa: Sucrose, you know, sucrose and glucose and lactose, those sugars. They use sugar powder, sucrose.
Prabhupāda: Oh, sucrose, yes. Saccharin and sucrose. Saccharin is sugar product.
Harikeśa: We tried that too the first time, with those...
Prabhupāda: No, that is no good.
Harikeśa: That was not good.
Prabhupāda: Salt is available very easily.
Harikeśa: And they use hard soap powder in these powdered ones. We tried that first with the hard soap powder? They use that also.
Prabhupāda: No, it is it (indistinct), we shouldn't do it. Only simple three things, that's all. That is good. That has come out.
Harikeśa: Menthol, pine oil, camphor, oil of wintergreen, glycerin, mustard powder, powdered salt and calcium carbonate.
Prabhupāda: Oh, yes. Good memory, yes, these are the things.
Hari-śauri: You put all that in the last batch?
Harikeśa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: In Durban, I think.
Hari-śauri: In Bombay we made the last one.
Harikeśa: No, that big batch last I made in Sanand. When you went to that Sanand above Ahmedabad, where that king had his palace, we stayed in that palace. That's when I made that big batch. But first it was developed in Durban.
Prabhupāda: Durban, yes. Because there was no possibility of using (indistinct-word for stick toothbrush). My teeth broken, and it became painful, it was not working. Therefore I invented. But it is effective.
Harikeśa: You said on account of this toothpaste... Your teeth were so rotten they want to fall out, but the toothpaste won't allow them.
Prabhupāda: Yes, actually my teeth have gone all bad. It is useless. But on account of this toothpaste it is still working. (laughs) Otherwise, according to dental science, it has to be extracted. It is no other remedy. If you go to a dentist, immediately he will say, "Extract all this and have a new set, artificial." That is, I know that. But I don't want to extract. As far as possible, use them and let them fall out automatically, as they have already fallen out so many. Fifty percent already fallen out, and twenty-five percent are shaking, and still I am eating. Otherwise, according to the dental science, I should not eat any salt. In Bengal there is a word that when teeth is rot, then your eating is gone. You cannot digest, you cannot eat. It is not... If the foodstuff is not properly chewed, it causes digestive disturbance. And digestive disturbance means so many diseases. This coughing is due to digestive disturbance. I know that.
Haṁsadūta: If it's three rupees, thirty paisa a day for eating, soap, and toothpaste...
Prabhupāda: No soap. Take this Rādhā-kuṇḍa's... Why soap? You are so devotee of Rādhā-kuṇḍa, why you require soap? This is nonsense. You take earth from the Rādhā-kuṇḍa or Vṛndāvana. Vṛndāvana-dhūli. Why you require soap? (Hindi conversation to the effect that if one has the dust of Vṛndāvana or Rādhā-kuṇḍa, there is no necessity for soap) Nim datun? I was doing nim datun(?) until the teeth fell down. You will know that I was collecting nim. But now it is impossible. That also I have manufactured my own toothpaste. I purchase only the brush and I made my toothpaste at home. I never used any toothpaste. Even in my young days. I never used. You have seen it practically. Not only that now I have become sannyāsī. When I was gṛhastha I never used. When I was gṛhastha I was using that nim datun(?) regularly. And I can give you the paste. So if you cannot use nim datun, you can use this paste. Very simple.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Rāmeśvara: ...we can start some businesses. Just like Spiritual Sky was started. It is giving every month to Los Angeles five thousand dollars.
Prabhupāda: So you can do business. Why don't you start this toothpaste? It is very effective. I am using personally. Toothpaste is a very common thing. If you introduce, it is used by cent percent persons. Simply they should like it.
Rāmeśvara: The taste is all right?
Prabhupāda: Yes, taste can be...
Rāmeśvara: Adjusted.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Rāmeśvara: In America everything is based on the tongue.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everywhere. Taste can be very nice, sweetened. There is salt, and you can add honey also. Naturally salty and sweet plus some ingredients like peppermint, wintergreen, camphor, it will make tasty. These ingredients are very nice.
Correspondence
1976 Correspondence
My dear Prabhupada dasa,
Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated May 31, 1976, and I have noted the contents carefully.
Concerning the production of toothpaste and cosmetics for which I may be able to supply the information, etc., you can come to see me in Toronto when I visit there between the 16th of June until the 21st of June.
| Page Title: | Toothpaste |
| Compiler: | Sahadeva |
| Created: | 18 of May, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=1, Con=7, Let=1 |
| No. of Quotes: | 9 |