An elderly Indian hermit man has stunned doctors in the western city of Ahmedabad, after claiming he has not eaten of drunk anything for seventy years, and then proved that he can survive without fuel or water for four days.

Prahlad Jani who is known by his followers as Mataji, which means the Mother Goddess, is an 82-year-old.

Medical staff, researchers and scientists from New Delhi-based Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences of India (DIPAS) carried out an observational study on him after he made his claim, to verify whether it was a hoax.

But, staff are astonished that he has survived even their four day test, let alone seventy years without food and drink.

Neurologist Sudhir Shah of the Sterling hospital where the study was conducted on Jani claimed that his survival and biological processes are miraculous.

He said: "I want to tell you that we are all watching a miracle in the science, or biology so to say, because it is already 108 hours since Mataji's admission into this hospital and he has not eaten anything; he has not drunk a little drop of any kind of liquid but more importantly, he has not passed a drop of water or stool.

"That makes science a little difficult. A person can live without food and water for three or four days."

Mataji claims he was blessed by the Hindu goddess Amba when he was just eight.