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yajvan
17 September 2006, 08:13 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Hello and Namaste,
I thought to add to this conversation of what we take in. The notion of sattvic food extends beyond the the nourishment of the 6 tastes in Ayurved.
The notion of 'food' and 'eating' in the ved extends to all the senses. That is, what we take in. Food is considered ahara or what is brought near to us. It has come to be called food as we ingest it.

We also ingest conversations and speech (vak), we ingest touch, smell, taste, sight though our senses. So, just as we have concern to eat the best food-stuffs , we need to consider the best company, the best entertainment, conversations, surroundings , site and smell, as we ‘eat’ these too.

It is also said it is He (Vaishvanara) who it’s the food – (Chandogya Upanishad 5.18.1).
So, as one gets a better appreciation of this, and grows in upasana, then ahara shuddi or what is brought near in purity becomes important as it becomes the offering to Vaishvanara.

What we eat, we become....


Pranams,

saidevo
18 September 2006, 11:59 AM
What we eat, we become....


1. A classic affirmation of this truth came from the great Bhishma Pitamaha who was lying on his bed of arrows in the Mahabharata warfield. When Pandavas sought his guidance in politics, and Bhishma obliged them, Darupati laughed. When Bhishma asked her the reason for her laugh, she said the old man had remained mute and passive when she was being insulted by the Kauravas and her sari was snatched. She laughed at the glaring incongruity that a man who submitted to the policy of muteness at that critical time should advise Pandavas to be fair and honest in politics. Bhishma replied that his behaviour was due to the food he ate sitting with the Kauvaras, which was not procured, prepared and served with good intentions.

2. Jawaharlal Nehru was well known for his disregard of Sanatana Dharma. In his speech on Hindu Code Bill (2-10-1951) he referred to our shastras and Acharams as indicative of a kitchen religion. Kanchi Paramacharya Sri Chandrasekarendra Sarasvati took exception to Nehru's speech and said that our rishis have given us the shastras and acharams for our spiritual progress after intense tapas; without following and enforcing them life, simply saying that they are the hurdles of a kitchen religion shows only our ignorance.

3. An article titled Blessed Rice talks about rice mahAtmiyam in this partial quote. The rest of the article can be read at http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/5-6/53_food_rice.shtml



Deep down beneath the granite mountains of Colorado, where you might expect to find a secret US Defense Department stockpile of missiles awaiting the end of the thaw from some awful nuclear winter, lies another kind of reserve. It is a dark, clinically sterile cold room, kept meticulously at 42 degrees and a relative humidity between 25 and 30. This is not the vault for a lethal chemical gas antidote or a vaccine for some exotic virus. These chambers, maintained by the United States Department of Agriculture, hold one of the strategic guarantors of human survival--16,474 varieties of rice. If that sounds like a lot, it's a mere fraction of the planet's diversity. India alone (where rice is said to have originated) had 50,000 varieties under cultivation over the centuries. Today most of India's rice comes from fewer than ten varieties.
...

Dr. Charles Balach, the Texas-based guru of America's rice breeding program, now retired ... observes, "Rice has been cultivated for at least 7,000 years in China. Farmers spent generations selectively getting the Ôbad' genes out of a strain, and it's very easy for us to introduce those back inadvertently as we try to improve a strain."
...

Rice history: Although it is still unknown exactly when and how people started growing rice, archaeologists have uncovered evidence that rice was present in Indian civilizations 8,000 bce, according to Tuk-Tuk Kumar, author of The History of Rice in India. She argues that rice husks used to temper clay pottery at Koldihawa and Mahagara sites indicate that a domesticated rice was grown at that time. Other researchers document a slender, wild strain called Indica growing on Himalayan slopes about 4,000 years ago. Extraordinary in yield, nutrition, resistance to disease, adaptability and savor, rice migrated around the globe with little promotion. Today, India's prized aromatic rice, Basmati, is found as far from its birthplace as Kenya and California.
...

Hinduism's ancient scriptures have many references to rice. Kumar notes that the Yajur Veda describes the preparation of rice cakes as a ritual offering. In the Atharva Veda, rice, along with barley, are described as "healing balms, the sons of heaven who never die." Smritis tell how Goddess Devi Lalithambika is known to be especially fond of payasa annam, sweet rice. Indeed, husked rice is always present in even the simplest Hindu puja as one of the offerings. So revered is rice that, if mixed with turmeric powder, it can substitute if necessary for an offering of costly items for the Gods such as dress, ornaments, even flowers.
...

South Indians call rice Anna Lakshmi. Anna means "food" and Lakshmi is the Goddess of Prosperity. From ancient times, Dhanya Lakshmi has been depicted holding a few sheaves of rice in her hand.
...

But this reverence for rice is not restricted to India. The Angkabau of Sumatra use special rice plants to denote the Rice Mother, Indoea Padi. The people of Indochina treat ripened rice in bloom like a pregnant woman, capturing its spirit in a basket. Even the Sundanese of West Java, who consider themselves Muslims, believe rice is the personification of the rice Goddess Dewi Sri.
...

Good eating: Dietetically, rice is cherished as a cholesterol-free, protein and calorie cornucopia. Most people in Asia obtain 60 to 80 percent of their calories from rice. Rice becomes a "complete protein" when eaten with beans or lentils because the enzymes in rice help to process the proteins in the lentil. As a result, rice is rarely served in India without some kind of lentil or dal.
...

And now there are attempts to genetically engineer an improved rice, attempts being embraced in India while being rejected out of hand in Europe and attracting ever-increasing opposition in America. Perhaps the saying, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it" should be applied to this already miraculous plant.

saidevo
18 September 2006, 08:30 PM
Food in Our Scriptures

A collection of quotes on food from our scriptures:

From Chandogya Upanishad

"From purity of food follows the purity of the internal organ" -- CU Vii.26.2
[Note:Mind is the internal organ]

"Mind is surely made of food, vital force is made of water, and speech is made of fire" -- CU VI.6.5

"Of curd when it is churned, that which is its subtle part rises upward. That becomes clarified butter. In this very way, of food when it is eaten, that which is the subtle part, that rises upward, and that becomes mind" -- CU Vi.6.1 & 2

"When nourishment is pure, reflection and higher understanding are pure, memory becomes strong. When memory becomes strong, there is release from all the knots of the heart." -- CU I. vii.

From Taittiriya Upanishad

Out of Brahman, who is the Self, came akasha (space);
from akasha, air; from air, fire; from fire, water; from water, earth; from earth, vegetation; out of vegetation, food; out of food the body of man. The body of man, composed of the essence of food, is the physical sheath of the Self. -- TU II.i.3

Let him (the knower of Brahman) never condemn (deprecate) food; that is the vow.

The prana (vital breath or vital energy) is, verily food; the body is the eater of food; for the vital force is lodged in the body. The body rests on the prana; the prana rests on the body. Thus food rests on food.

He who knows this resting of food on food is established; he becomes a possessor of food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle (prosperity) and in spiritual radiance (luster of holiness) and great in fame. -- TU III.vii.1

Of all the restrictive rules, that relating to the taking of sattwic food in moderate quantities is best; by observing this rule, the sattwic quality of mind will increase, and that will be helpful to Self-inquiry. -- Sri Ramana Maharshi

From Samaveda, Uttararchika, Book 5, IX :
Translated by Devi Chand, M.A.

O learned persons, free from partisanship towards other wise men, in your non-violent religious dealings, appoint him as your messenger, who is learned, renowned, virtuous, firm and patient among mankind, truthful, austere, forbearing, leader of men, taker of non-stimulating diet like ghee (clarified butter), and ennobling. (1219).

From Mahabharata

A Brahmin (priest) should abstain from meat. -- The Mahabharata Anusasana Parva, Section XCIII

The sin of eating meat is ascribed to three causes. That sin may attach to the mind, to words, and to acts. It is for this reason that men of wisdom who are endued with penances refrain from eating meat. -- The Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Section CXIV

Well-dressed, cooked with salt or without salt, meat, in whatever form one may take it, gradually attracts the mind and enslaves it. -- The Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Section CXIV

[Note: By eating meat, one feels the desire for meat increasing. A taste or predilection for meat is thus created. Hence the best course is total abstinence from meat.]

From Bhagavad Gita

The food also which is dear to each is threefold. -– Gita,17.7

That food which increases life, purity, strength, health, joy and cheerfulness, which are savoury and oleaginous, substantial and agreeable, are dear to the Sattwic (pure) people. -– Gita, 17. 8

The foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning are liked by the Rajasic and are productive of pain, grief and disease. -- Gita 17. 9

That which is stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten and impure refuse, is the food liked by the Tamasic. -– Gita, 17.10

From Sattwa (purity) arises wisdom or knowledge; from Rajas (passion) arises greed; and from Tamas (inertia) arises heedlessness, delusion and ignorance. -- Gita, 14.17

Verily Yoga is not possible for him who eats too much, nor for him who does not eat at all, nor for him who sleeps too much nor for him who is always awake. -- Gita 6.16

Yoga becomes the destroyer of pain for him who is moderate in eating and recreation, who is moderate in exertion in actions, who is moderate in sleep and wakefulness. -- Gita 6.17

From Manu Smriti

Garlic, leeks and onions, mushrooms and (all plants) springing from impure (substances) are unfit to be eaten by twice-born men.

[Note: Twice born are Brahmanas, Kshatriyas and Vaisyas. Physical birth by biological mother is the first birth. Spiritual birth is the second birth.]

Ayurveda and food


A fleeting glimpse of Ayurveda
The Science of Life and Health

By Dr.Robert E.Svoboda
Dr.Svoboda acquired proficiency in Ayurveda at the Tilak Ayurveda Medical College in Poona, India.

Although meat is mandated in Ayurveda for debilitated patients, for warriors (Kshatriyas) and for those who overexert themselves, it is very heavy for digestion, putrefies faster than other foods and produces Ama (internal toxins) quickly...

Esoterically, the fear felt by the animal as it waits to be slaughtered and the hatred it feels for the human who slaughters it change the composition of its flesh and increase fear and anger in whoever eats it. The more the violence involved in the collection of our food, the greater the violence in our lives. Also, because digestive wastes are partly excreted in sweat, a meat-eater sits in his or her own odour daily, breathing in chemicals which promote fear and anger, and projecting this fear and anger out at others.

Food articles to which you should never become habituated because they are too heavy to be properly digested include unchurned yoghurt, pork, beef, mutton, dried meat, dried vegetables, molasses, and cheese, as well as any foods which are very cold, very hot, thoroughly tasteless, or too intense in taste.

Garlic and onions are both Rajasic and tamasic, and are forbidden to Yogis because they root the consciousness more firmly in the body.


For other discussions that include:

The Ritual of Eating
Elements, Doshas and Tastes
Destructive Emotions
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
The Hunza Health Secrets
Faulty Food Disease
Natural Food Cures Psoriasis
Oxidation of foods
Diet Classification
Microwave Ovens (Milk reheated in microwave ovens could damage baby's brains)
The Poisons in Your Food

please read at http://www.hinduism.org.za/food.htm

saidevo
20 September 2006, 07:54 AM
A Humble Vegetable

Speaking to students in Kodaikanal, Bhagavan Baba once narrated a parable:

"Once all vegetables in the world entered into a dispute about which of them was the greatest. Unable to come to an agreement they prayed to Lord Brahma, Lord Maha Vishnu and Lord Maheshwara to intercede and decide. Responding to their prayers, the three Gods came down to earth. They heard every vegetable with all the sympathy, patience and understanding that the sensitive issue deserved. Finally, they decided that a particular vegetable was the greatest. What is that? The humble onion!

"All other vegetables were astounded. Each of them possessed admirable qualities. How could these Gods decide that onion was the greatest? Sensing their grievance, the Gods spoke up. They said, "There is no doubt that all of you possess commendable qualities. But onion has one additional and special trait which none of you can boast of. That is to retain the same smell unchanged throughout its life! That is why we have decided in its favour. Be like the onion. Whether you are happy or unhappy, comfortable or suffering, never abandon your trait of being devoted to God.' This explanation satisfied all the aggrieved vagatables.

"Softly stroking his beard, Lord Brahma wished the winner, 'As long as I exist, may you possess a beard like me.' If you look closely at an onion you will find a thin beard adorning it. Lord Vishnu blessed the onion, 'Cut vertically you will display one of my insignia, the Sankha (conch, shell). Cut horizontally, you will reveal another of my insignia, the Chakra (disk).' Cut open an onion and you will notice this. Lord Shiva blessed it, 'I will give you a guarantee. Anyone trying to harm you is condemned to shed tears.' This too is well within the experience of everybody!"

Sri Sarabhanga has rightly said: "onion (fondly known as 'Ram Laddu') and garlic are not objected to by Shaiva Sadhus." In Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu, onion raita (onion soaked in curd) is served almost daily in their satvic free meal around eleven in the morning.

saidevo
20 September 2006, 09:25 AM
Other Food Links

The Ways and Joys of Eating With Your hands
In our July/August issue, Maya Tiwari introduced the myriad benefits of using the hands in cooking and eating. In this article she continues her explanation of the Vedic hands-on approach to nourishment.

Hands are considered our most precious organ of action. Our hands and feet are said to be the conduits of the five elements--space, air, fire, water and earth. One of the five elements courses through each finger. Through the thumb, angushtha, comes space; through the forefinger, tarjani, air; through the midfinger, madhyama, fire; through the ring finger, anamika, water and through the little finger, kanishtha, earth.

In Vedic tradition, we eat with our hands because the five elements within them begin to transform food and make it digestible even before it reaches the mouth. This transformation also heightens the senses so that we can smell, taste and feel the texture of the foods we are eating. We can also hear the sounds of eating. All of these sensations are a necessary prelude to beckoning agni, the fire of digestion, to ready itself for the meal to come.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/1-2/2001-1-19.shtml

The Science of Taste
The rishis have categorized the food we eat into six different tastes: sweet, salty, sour, pungent, bitter and astringent. These tastes become "tastes" only after they contact the tongue. Their qualities may change according to which phase of digestion they are in; for example, on the tongue the effect is called rasa, as the food enters the stomach we call it the virya or energy, and the post-digestive effect is the vipaka. Usually the rasa and vipaka are the same, with different energies shown by the different tastes.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1993/05/1993-05-08.shtml

Healing--A Contented Cow's Milk: Part 1
...
Cow's milk is light, astringent, sweet and cold. It is a tonic for all. It tends to calm all the doshas. It is able to detoxify the body and is well known for reducing the "heat" of peppers, onions, garlic and other strong spices.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1995/12/11_healing_cows_milk.shtml

The Hindu Meaning Of Food
...
Seen from the Hindu perspective, food becomes part and parcel of the overall system of body, mind, spiritual development and society. This sophisticated way of dealing with the body, food and medicine has generally persisted up to the present, although technological and foreign influences (such as taking stimulants like coffee, processed 'convenience' foods, etc.) have eroded beliefs in those values.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1982/08/1982-08-05.shtml

Blessed Rice
Meet the wonder grain that feeds our families, blesses our ceremonies and decorates our homes.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/5-6/53_food_rice.shtml

Lotus: Food For the Body
Good nourishment and medicine lurk beneath those pretty petals
Besides its sanctity and beauty, the lotus is extensively used as both food and medicine in India. In fact, five thousand years ago verses of the Rig Veda extolled the lotus for its food value in the first literary reference to the flower. Almost every part is edible.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1999/7/1999-7-14.shtml

Food and Breath: Sustaining the Body
...
The following experience illustrates instant and profound benefits. Recently, Joyce attended a food sadhana workshop. Throughout, she was uneasy and distracted in her seat. Afterwards, Joyce told me she had a history of chronic migraines. ... I gave her this simple food sadhana regime:

Be mindful in your approach and attitude toward food. These simple steps will help you: 1. Make your kitchen a sacred, simplified space. 2. Know where your food comes from. Use fresh, seasonal and organically grown foods. 3. Grind fresh spice seeds in a mortar and pestle for everyday use. 4. At the same times everyday, prepare and eat two ample meals. 5. Practice gratitude before imbibing a healthful meal by offering food to Mother Nature. Traditionally, a small portion of each cooked food is offered to the fire before tasted or served. The offering may be accompanied by any prayer you choose. 6. Observe silence during meals. 7. Following meals, while your food is being digested, take a brief stroll or sit on your heels for 20 minutes.

Two months later, I received a letter from Joyce with a recent photograph of herself. She glowed with good health. She was still on her sadhana program. Her migraines had disappeared. Joyce had only one brief setback one week after she started the program. Immediately after a junk food binge, she experienced a migraine again. This convinced Joyce to stick to her healthy regime. Two months later she was free from migraines and had even lost weight.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1998/6/1998-6-16.shtml

From The Vedas: Graduates, Feed the World!
Swami Chinmayananda expounds Vedic hospitality
...The duties of a householder instill into him the idea of charity and the spirit of hospitality. A duty unavoidable to a householder is that he should entertain every guest that comes to him 'without date or invitation' (atithi). Thus, the householder student, during his upasana, was told to consider this atithi seva as his vow.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2002/10-12/16-17_vedas.shtml

Hindu Hospitality
The glories and woes of a gracious tradition
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2003/10-12/18-19_hospitality.shtml

Ayurveda: Childhood Nutrition
Don't just feed your children good food, teach them how to eat right their whole life
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2005/10-12/53_nutrition.shtml

A Spicy History
The foremost spices of history were black pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. Less major players were ginger, cardamom, mace and saffron. Black pepper (piper nigrum) came from India, principally Kerala.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2000/3-4/2000-3-08.shtml

Five Simple Home Remedies
Here we list the five most important herbs and foods to have on hand. With these, you can create quick and effective remedies.

Cautionary Note: It is important to remember that if you suffer from a serious ailment you should seek the advice of a trained physician
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1994/7/1994-7-12.shtml

How About a Diet to Die For?
As I have mentioned in the past, the traditional South Indian vegetarian diet is an excellent balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates with no emphasis on undesirable fats.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1998/11/1998-11-18.shtml

Dangers of Food Irradiation
Keeping food fresh is a major problem, and the food industry is always looking for new ways to prolong the shelf life of our food supplies. In the past the industry has used various processing techniques: cooking, salting, drying, bottling, canning, freeze drying, smoking, chilling, freezing, dehydrating and addition of chemical preservatives. None of these methods have been 100% successful, and with each method there are variable effects upon the nutritional value of the food.

The newest technique of prolonging shelf life is food irradiation...
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1991/06/1991-06-08.shtml

McDonald's Supersizes Hindu Endowment
$10 million settlement-includes $255,000 for Hinduism Today, an international magazine published by Kauai's Hindu Monastery
They deceived the public about beef flavorings in their "vegetarian fries." They got caught. They were sued. They settled in court. This week the food giant McDonald's mailed a check for $254,773.19 to Hinduism Today magazine's endowment fund (Hindu Heritage Endowment), one of a handful of elite vegetarian-friendly institutions in America chosen as recipients of the court-ordered $10 million settlement.
http://www.hinduismtoday.com/press_releases/mcdonalds/

And there may be other several useful links given by this search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=food&hl=en&lr=&safe=vss&domains=www.hinduismtoday.com%3Bwww.himalayanacademy.com%3Bwww.hindu.org&sitesearch=www.hinduismtoday.com&start=80&sa=N

saidevo
21 September 2006, 10:10 AM
A Virtual Dinner with Kanchi Paramacharya: annam Atma paripAlanam
126

Kanchi Paramacharya, Sri Chandrasekharendra Sarasvati Swami took sannyAsam and ascended the throne of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham at the age of thirteen. From that day, until he attained videha mukti at the age of 100, he lived an exemplary life of strictest austerity.

His daily main meal was often astonishingly simple: a small handful of puffed rice soaked in buttermilk. Even this was not taken when he went on fasting for days together. Occasionally, he took bhiksha from his devotees, but it was more to satisfy their desires than for his own welfare.

Therefore, in the virtual dinner we are going to have with him now, he plays only the part of a host. A host giving us food for body, mind and soul. He is the very embodiment of Ambal Kamakshi, who took avatar in Kanchi and did tapas to be joined with her Isha, while conducting the thirty-two kinds of dharmas in Kanchi, starting with the anna dhanam. We are his atitis (guests) who are well taken care of by him in body and spirit.

Paramacharya's spiritual discourses are well known, and have been published as a collection of seven volumes titled Deivatthin Kural (The Voice of the Divine) in Tamil by Sri Ra. Ganapathi, his eminent devotee. The English collection of his discourses is available under the title 'Hindu Dharma' at http:www.kamakoti.org.

To the awe and amazement of his devotees, Paramacharya often discussed about down-to-earth laukika matters with keen interest, deep understanding and knowledge. In this lecture, he explains the origin and meaning of the names of common Indian dishes and their connection to spirituality. In these explanations, I have mostly used the translated words of what Paramacharya actually spoke, extracted from the Tamil publication titled Sollin Selvar (The Expert of Words), Sri Kanchi Munivar by Sri Ra. Ganapathy.

A South Indian Meal
A typical South Indian meal is served in three main courses: sambar sAdam, rasam sAdam and more (buttermilk) sAdam. Sambar is also known as kuzhambu in Tamil, a term that literally translates to 'get confused'. Paramacharya explains how these three courses are related to the three gunas of spirituality: the confusion of sambar is tamo guna, the clarified and rarified flow of rasam is rajo guna and the all-white buttermilk is satva guna. Our meal reminds us of our spiritual path from confused inaction to a clear flow of action and finally to the realized bliss of unity.

sAdam
Cooked rice, the main dish of a South Indian meal is called sAdam. That which has sat is sAdam, in the same way we call those who are full of sat, sadhus. We can give another explanation for the term: that which is born out of prasannam is prasAdam. What we offer to Swami (God) as nivedanam is given back to us as parasAdam. Since we should not add the root 'pra' to the rice we cook for ourselves, we call it sAdam.

rasam
Rasam means juice, which is also the name of filtered ruchi. We say 'it was full of rasa' when a speech or song was tasteful. Vaishnavas, because of their Tamil abhimAnam, refer to rasam as saatthamudhu. It does not mean the amudhu (amrita) mixed with sAdam. It was actually saatramudhu (saaru or rasam + amudhu), which became saatthamudhu.

Vaishnavas also have a term thirukkann amudhu that refers to our pAyasam. What is that thirukkann? If rudrAksham means Rudra's eye, does 'thirukkann' mean Lakshmi's eye? Or does the term refer to some vastu (article) added to pAyasam? No such things. Thiru kannal amudhu has become thirukkann amudhu. Kannal means sugercane, the base crop of suger and jaggery used in pAyasam.

I was talking about rasam. If something is an extraction of juice, then would it not be clear, diluted and free of sediments? Such is the nature of our rasam, which is clear and dilute. The other one, served earlier to rasam in a meal, is the kuzhambu. Kuzhambu contains dissolved tamarind and cut vegetable pieces, so it looks unclear, its ingredients not easily seen.

buttermilk as our dessert
A western meal normally ends with a dessert. In a South Indian meal, desserts such as pAyasam are served after the rasam sAdam. Any sweets that were served at the beginning are also taken at this time. After that we take buttermilk rice as our final course. Paramacharya explains that since sweets are harmful to teeth, our sour and salty buttermilk actually strengthens our teeth, and this has been observed and praised by an American dietician. We gargle warm salt water when we get toothache. The buttermilk is the reason for our having strong teeth until the end of our life, unlike the westerners who resort to dentures quite early in their life.

vegetable curry
Although cut vegetable pieces are used in sambar, kootoo and pacchadi, in curry they are fried to such an extent that they become dark in color (the term curry also means blackness or darkness in Tamil). May be this is the origin of the name curry.

uppuma (kitchadi)
If the term uppuma is derived from the fact that we add uppu or salt, then we also add salt to iddly, dosa and pongal! Actually, it is not uppuma but ubbuma! The rava used for this dish expands in size to the full vessel where heated up with water and salt. The action of rava getting expanded is the reason for the term ubbuma.

iddly
The term iduthal (in Tamil) refers to keeping something set and untouched. We call the cremation ground idukaadu (in Tamil). There we keep the mrita sarira (mortal body) set on the burning pyre and then come away. The term iduthal also refers to refining gold with fire. The (Tamil) term idu marunthu has a similar connotation: a drug given once without any repetition of dosage. In the same way, we keep the iddly wet flour on the oven and do nothing to it until it is cooked by steam.

idiyaappam
(This is rice noodles cooked in steam). Brahmins call it seva while others call it idiyaappam. But unlike an appam which is a cake, this dish is in strands. The term appam is derived from the Sanskrit ApUpam meaning cake. The flour of that cake is called ApUpayam. This word is the origin of the Tamil word appam.

appalaam (papad)
The grammatical Tamil term is appalam. This dish is also made by kneading (urad dhal) flour, making globules out of it and then flattening them. So it is also a kind of appam. Because of its taste a 'la' is added as a particle of endearment!

laddu
ladanam (in Sanskrit) means to play, to throw. ladakam is the sports goods used to play with. Since the ball games are the most popular, ladakam came to mean a ball. The dish laddu is like a ball, and this term is a shortened form of laddukam, which derived from ladakam.

Laddu is also known as kunjaa laadu. This should actually be gunjaa laadu, because the Sanskrit term gunjA refers to the gunjA-berry, used as a measure of weight, specially for gold. Since a laddu is a packed ball of gunjA like berries cooked out of flour and sugar, it got this name.

The singer of mUka panca sati on Ambal Kamakshi describes her as Matangi and in that description praises her as 'gunjA bhUsha', that is, wearing chains and bangles made of gunjA-berries of gold.

pori vilangaa laddu
Made of jaggery, rice flour and dried ginger without any ghee added to it, this laddu is as hard as a wood apple, though very tasty, and hence got its name from that fruit and the original pori (puffed rice) flour used to make it.

Indian Dishes of Turkish Origin
Our halwa is a dish that came from the Turkish invasion. bahU kalam (long ago) before that we had a dish called paishtikam, made of flour, ghee and sugar. But then the Arabian term halwa has stuck in usage for such preparation.

sojji
sUji is another name from the Turkish. It has become sojji now. It is mostly referred to these days as kesari. In Sanskrit, kesaram means mane, so kesari is a lion with kesaram. It was a practice to add the title 'kesari' to people who are on the top in any field. Thus we have Veera Kesari, Hari Kesari as titles of kings in Tamilnadu. The German Keisar, Roman Caesar and the Russian Czar -- all these titles came from only from this term kesari.

What is the color the lion? A sort of brownish red, right? A shade that is not orange nor red. That is the kesar varnam. The powder of that stone is called kesari powder, which became the name of the dish to which it is added for color.

vada
A Tamil pundit told me that the name vada(i) could have originated from the Sanskrit mAshApUpam, which is an appam made of mAsham or the urad dhal. He also said that in ancient Tamilnadu, vada and appam were prepared like chapati, baking the flour cake using dry heat.

dadhya araadhana
Someone asked me about the meaning of this term. He was under the impression that dadhi was curd, so dadhiyaaradhana(i) was the curd rice offered to Perumal. Actually, the correct term is tadeeya AradhanA, meaning the samaaradhana(i) (grand dinner) hosted to the bhagavatas of Perumal. It got shortened in the habitual Vaishnava way.

Vaishnavas offer the nivedanam of pongal with other things to Perumal in their dhanur mAsa ushad kala puja (early morning puja of the Dhanur month). They call it tiruppakshi. The original term was actually tiruppalli ezhuchi, the term used to wake of Perumal. It became 'tiruppazhuchi', then 'tiruppazhachi' and finally 'tiruppakshi' today, using the Sanskrit kshakara akshram, in the habitual Vaishnava way. It is only vegetarian offering, nothing to do with pakshi (bird)!

The term dhanur mAsam automatically brings up thoughts of Andaal and her paavai (friends). In the 27th song (of Tiruppaavai), she describes her wake up puja and nivedanam with milk and sweet pongal to Bhagavan, which culminates in her having a joint dinner with her friends. Vaishnavas celebrate that day as the festival koodaara valli, following the same sampradhAyam (tradition). The name of this festival is from the phrase koodaarai vellum seer Govinda, (Govinda who conquers those who don't reach Him) which begins the 27th song. It was this 'koodaarai vellum' that took on the vichitra vEsham (strange form) of 'koodaara valli'.

pAyasam
payas (in Sanskrit) means milk. So pAyasam literally means 'a delicacy made of milk'. This term does not refer to the rice and jaggery used to make pAyasam. They go with the term without saying. Actually pAyasam is to be made by boiling rice in milk (not water) and adding jaggery. These days we have dhal pAyasam, ravA pAyasam, sEmia pAyasam and so on, using other things in the place of rice.

Vaishanavas have a beautiful Tamil term akkaara adisil for pAyasam. The 'akkaar' in this term is a corruption of the Sanskrit sharkara. The English term 'sugar' is from the Arabian 'sukkar', which in turn is from this Sanskrit term. The same term also took the forms 'saccharine' and 'jaggery'. And the name of the dish jangiri is from the term jaggery.

kanji (porridge)
Before we become satiated with madhuram (sweetness), let us turn our attention to a food that is sour. As an alternative to sweetness, our Acharyal (Adi Sankara) has spoken about sourness in his Soundarya Lahiri.

Poets describe a bird called cakora pakshi that feeds on moon-beams. Sankara says in Soundarya Lahiri that the cakora pakshi were originally feeding on the kArunya lAvaNyAmruta (the nectar of compassion and beauty) flowing from Ambal's mukha chanran (moon like face). They got satiated with that nectar and were looking for somthing sour, and spotted the full moon, which being only a reflection, issued only sour beams!

Acharyal has used the term kAnjika diya, which gives an evidence of his origin in the Malayala Desam. He said that since the cakora pakshis were convinced that the nectar from the moon was only sour kanji, they chose to feed on it as an alternative.

The term kAnjika means relating to kanji, but the word kanji is not found in Sanskrit. It is a word current only in the Dakshinam (south). There too, kanji is special in Malayala Desam where even the rich lords used to drink kanji in the morning. This was the variety came to be known as the 'Mayalayam Kanji'.

Kanji is good for deham as well as chittam. And less expensive. You just add a handful of cooked rice rava (broken rice), add buttermilk, salt and dry ginger, which would be enough for four people.

The buttermilk added must be a bit more sour. The salt too must be a bit more in quantity. With the slight burning taste of dry ginger, the combination would be tasty and healthy.

tAmbUlam
It is customary to have tAmbUlam at the end of a South Indian dinner. In the North, tAambUlam is popularly known as paan, which is usually a wrap of betel nut and other allied items in a calcium-laced pair of betel leaves. In the South, tAmbUlam is usually an elaborate and leisurely after-dinner activity. People sit around a plate of tAmbUlam items, drop a few cut or sliced betel nut pieces in their month, take the betel leaves one by one leisurely, draw a daub of pasty calcium on their back and then stuff them in their month, chatting happily all the while.

The betel leaf is known by the name vetrilai in Tamil, literally an empty leaf. Paramacharya once asked the people sitting around him the reason for calling it an empty leaf. When none could give the answer, he said that the usually edible plants don't just stop with leaf; they proceed to blossom, and bear fruits or vegetables. Even in the case of spinach or lettuce, we have to cook them before we can take them. Only in the case of the betel leaf, we take it raw, and this plant just stops with its leaves, hence the name vetrilai or empty leaf.

saidevo
15 November 2006, 05:22 AM
'Annadhana Sivan'
(from the book titled Maha Periyavalh Virundhu by Raa. Ganapathi)

"The cooked rice (sAdam) would have been gathered into a very huge heap, looking dazzling white like the Himalayas. Even if an elephant drowns in the sAmbAr andA (huge vessel containing sAmbAr), you wouldn't know. It is said that Himalachala Sivan created a huge pit of food for the sake of Gundodaran during the Meenakshi Kalyanam (Shiva's celestial wedding with Meenakshi at Madurai). In the same way, this poor brahmana Sivan did a marvellous and mighty task."

Kanchi Paramacharya was reminiscing about the annadhAnam festivities of Sri Ramaswamy Iyer of Tepperumal Nallur, Tamilnadu, who was more popularly (and appropriately) known as 'Annadhana Sivan'. These food festivities took place in Kumbakonam during the Mahamaham festivals in the years 1921 and 1933, and fed several thousand people.

Since the middle of the eighteenth century until the middle of the twentieth, Kumbakonam was the headquarters of Kanchi Matam. Sivan virtually made the Matam his home from 1916 since his demise in 1939.

Paramacharya continued his reminiscences about the big event thus:

"It was during the 1933 Mahamaham annadhAnam. The wood brought for fuel was a hundred cartloads. For pickles, ten cartloads of the amala fruit ( phyllanthus emblica) were received. He would just smell the vapours of the dishes being cooked and say correctly what needed to be added to a dish. From the vapours of rasam, he would order the amount of coriander yet to be ground and added. Not just a handful of corianders. 'Ground a large pan of coriander and add to the rasam', he would shout to a cook. If a large pan of coriander was to be added more than what has already been done, imagine the quantity of rasam that would have been made. And there ware two cartloads of broomsticks (of the coconut tree) that were used to clean the floor after a dining session.

"However much the number of cooked rice vessels or however long the serial wood furnaces be, they couldn't just meet the amount of rice required. So what he would do is to first cook ten or twenty bags of rice, spread the lots over long mats, cover the steaming, cooked rice (anna pAvadai) with a thin, white cloth and spread bags of raw, uncooked rice over the cloth with the cooked rice under. Then he would cover this uncooked rice with long jute sacks and fold them tightly under the mat. In the next half hour, when the sacks were removed, all the upper layer of uncooked rice would have been cooked, soft like flowers! Such was his technique to speed up the rice-making task.

"Where did he go for all the milk required for curd to serve the multitudes of diners? Sivan had another technique for this requirement. In those days when there were no refrigerators, Sivan had invented his own! Weeks or even months before the samArAdhanA (food festival), Sivan used to go about the task of collecting milk and making curds. He would pack the curd in wooden barrels, seal them with wax and drown the barrels in deep ponds. When the barrels were extracted and opened, the curd would be just like it was formed yesterday! We should say, it was not just the coolness of the pond, but the cool compassion of his mind also that made the task possible."

Though Sivan conducted the festivities on behalf of Kanchi Matam, the 1921 and 1933 Mahamaham samArAdhanAs were eventful in the sense, Paramacharya was not there in Kumbakonam at that time, as he had undertaken the ganga yAtra (pilgrimage to the banks of Ganga) in the year 1919, which lasted for twenty-one long years. During the Mahamaham of 1933, Paramacharya had camped on the outskrits of Kumbakonam, in Patteesvaram and Tiruvidai Marudhur, en route to Ramesvaram, from where he was to proceed to Varanasi. Observing the tradition, he did not enter the Kumbakonam matam until his yAtra was completed. He would go to the Mahamaham pond to take bath or to the temples of Kumbakonam from his camp and return. It was during the year 1933 that the renovation work of the Matam was completed, under the supervision of Sivan.

A speciality about Sivan's annadhAnam festivities was that until the evening of the previous day there were no signs at the place of dining of any activity of food preparation. The articles would start arriving only in the night. In the 1933 festival, it was past midnight and yet not a cartload of articles arrived! Even the fearless taskmaster Sivan started worrying over the actual time left for arranging the things and start cooking to feed a lakh of people on the next morning.

The news reached the camp where Paramacharya was staying. In the next few minutes, the carts started arriving.

The carts that were usually exempted from the traffic regulations during the Mahamaham festival were at that time held up by the traffic police, who were not aware of the relaxation of rules for Sivan's carts. The circle inspector suddenly had a flash at one-thirty at night and proceeded to the scene of holdup. Thereafter, the carts that were parked outside the city moved in, and Paramacharya's blessings saw to it that everything went on well from that time.

A most notable thing about the festivities was that neither the 'Walking Sivan', nor the 'Annadhana Sivan' ever tasted a morsel of the food served! Paramacharya usually took the flattened rice offered to Sri Chandramouleesvara, even that when he was not on fast. Annadhana Sivan would go a friend's house and take just curd rice, which was his usual, favourite dish, which he took even on normal days after offering it to his ishta devata (personal God) Sri Dakshinamurthi.

Paramacharya said later, that contrary to the popular perception that Sivan did the annadhAnam on behalf of the Kanchi Matam, it was his festivities that restored the financial status of the Matam during those difficult days.

vcindiana
15 November 2006, 08:43 PM
How can u enjoy food without onions?

Sudarshan
17 November 2006, 08:19 AM
How can u enjoy food without onions?

Someone else may ask - How can u enjoy food without meat? Vegetarians only smile at this question.

How to enjoy food without onions? Well, I have never taken it and have no idea how tasty it is. I have no need for it either, nor do I miss it. As far as I know, it smells bad and you cannot sit comfortably near those who consume a lot of onions and garlic and these people need to use perfumes to save their jobs at work.

satay
17 November 2006, 08:43 AM
As far as I know, it smells bad and you cannot sit comfortably near those who consume a lot of onions and garlic and these people need to use perfumes to save their jobs at work.

:D
are you joking!

I eat a ton of onions in food and along with my food. I can not enjoy my food without raw onions!
I also never use any perfumes but fortunately still employed since graduation!

:D

saidevo
17 November 2006, 08:58 AM
Namaste vcindiana,


How can u enjoy food without onions?

Please refer to post #4 of this thread about the spiritual admissibility of onions and garlic. As a Saivite, I do take and enjoy them (I am not much spiritual of course) and personally think that their taste, smell or puranic origin does not affect spiritual progress. As Sarabhanga would be fond of calling it, onion is the 'Ram Laddu'. Most Vaishnavites and some orthodox Saivites do not take them, though some of my Vaishnavite friends do take them.

The pungent smell and taste of raw onion is good for common cold. It can be used as a mosquito repellent also: just cut an onion and smear a border around your bed with its juice for a mosquito-free sleep. The smaller variety of onions popularly known as 'sambar onions' make a very tasty sambar. Around the 1970s, a popular brahmin restaurant by name Concerns in Matunga, Bombay used to serve onion sambar with boiled potato curry for their vegetarian, South Indian meal on Thursdays, and this meal was very popular.

In a similar manner, garlic combats gas problems in the stomach. During my school days, we used to take oil-bath once in two weeks. On those days, the lunch included sambar of toor-dal balls and garlic rasam, and we children at my grandpa's home (where I stayed) would vie with each other to have a good share of the boiled garlic pearls. A raw garlic pearl taken in the morning in empty stomach is said to be good for health, but I haven't tried it.

So rest assured that onion and garlic in food are indeed enjoyable, tasty and do not retard your spiritual progress. Incidentally, the spiritual meal served free in Sri Ramanasramam, Tiruvannamalai, Tamilnadu, around eleven in the morning, includes onion raita!

Sudarshan
17 November 2006, 08:59 AM
:D
are you joking!

I eat a ton of onions in food and along with my food. I can not enjoy my food without raw onions!
I also never use any perfumes but fortunately still employed since graduation!

:D

You might be lucky.:)

I have seen some of my colleagues getting warning that someone sitting near them complained. (especially if you have "gas trouble" you will be unapproachable:D )

saidevo
18 November 2006, 12:48 AM
The Amazing bhiksha That Paramacharya Took
(from the book titled Maha Periyavalh Virundhu by Raa. Ganapathi)

More often than not Paramacharya observed suddha upavAsah (rigorous fast), which sometimes extended to days together. Even on the days he took bhiksha (offered food), his usual take was a small amount of nel pori (the rice equivalent of popcorn) that was offered to Sri Chandramouleeswara or Mother Kamakshi. The days he took cooked rice with the accompanying dishes were very rare. To give up rice totally, he even tried the flour extracted from raw bananas, but had to give it up on the entreaties of his doctor devotees.

Sometime in the year 1936, Paramacharya was observing the chAturmAsyam (ahimsa dharma followed by sanyasins by staying at one place and meditating) at Berhampur on his way back from Varanasi. At that time he observed rigorous fasting for several days together. And he did it so secretly that most people around him were not aware of it. The treasurer Ramachandra Iyer somehow came to know about the rigorous fast.

He went to Mahaperiyavaa and pleaded with him to give up the fast. Paramacharya immediately called his biksha assistant and told him about the things that should be added to his personal food the next day.

The treasurer was happy. As he returned to his office, he got a doubt if Periyavaa had really granted his entreaty when he did not listen even to such people as 'Annadhana Sivan' in such matters. When he checked up with the biksha assistant, his doubt was confirmed. The assistant said, "As soon as you left him, Periyavaa asked me to forget it all as he had only told so to satisfy you."

The treasurer went again to Mahaperiyavaa, but couldn't have an opportunity to talk to him. Everytime he tried, Paramacharya saw to it that he had somebody nearby discussing something. This continued for some days, until one day, the treasurer was able to 'catch' Paramacharya at ten in the night, when the latter had finished the Friday puja, appearing rather tired.

"Periyavaa should have a stomachful of biksha tomorrow," said the treasurer. "Otherwise I shall quit the matam."

That did not work. With a broad smile, Paramacharya said, "Will nothing move in the matam if you are not there?"

"Then I shall quit this world", uttered the treasurer vehemently, and started weeping. He knew that Periyavaa could not ask the same question with this offer to quit the world.

"Alright, I will have the biksha. Why tomorrow, I shall have it now. You said that you will offer to fill my stomach. Will you do it?" said Paramacharya.

"I am only waiting for such words", said the treasurer as he prostrated, his eyes full of tears. He thought that at that time of night Periyavaa wouldn't take anything other than milk and fruits, so he rose to call the biksha assistant who knew about his Guru's habits.

"Why do you call him? I asked only you to offer me the biksha and you agreed", said Paramacharya.

"Since I don't know about the quantity, I though I would ask him..."

"So what? Bring what is avaiable."

The treasurer brought the baskets and bamboo plates that were filled with fruits. He thought Periyavaa could take what he desired from the lot.

A totally surprising order came from Paramacharya. "Where is the suji (a sweet dish) and sundal (boiled and fried seeds) that were offered at the Friday puja? Bring them at once!"

The treasurer ran and brought the large utensils that had the dishes, and placed them in front of his Guru.

A miracle happened there! Paramacharya emptied the utensils quickly and asked for more!

The treasurer moved the fruit baskets near the sage. That was also emptied in no time. And the question came, "what else is there?" The treasurer was aghast.

"You offered to fill my stomach and stirred the hunger in me, now I can't bear it!" said Paramacharya. Not able to withstand those words, the treasurer brought a large kooja (a pot like container) of milk and offered to the sage.

No sooner Paramacharya drank all the milk than the treasurer patted his cheeks resoundingly and fell at the feet of the sage. "Periyavaa should excuse me! I shall never disturb you hereafter."

Mahaperiyavaa laughed like a child and said, "So you wouldn't come in my way henceforth!", and blessed the treasurer with raised hands.

saidevo
28 November 2006, 11:06 AM
Paramacharya as Goddess Annapurani
(from the book titled Maha Periyavalh Virundhu by Raa. Ganapathi)

Even during the 1920s Paramacharya hosted a dinner for the Muslims, whose sense of unity and patriotism ran high in those days.

Two hundred Muslim youths from an Islamic Youth Forum performed an exemplary service in the Mahamaham festival of 1921 in Kumbakonam. Paramacharya, who was camping at Patteesvarm nearby, heard about it and sent some Matam officials to bring the Muslim youths to him.

The youths were very happy that Shankaracharya had called them to his presence. They stood before him showing utmost reverence.

Paramacharya praised their seva and heard the details about their Forum. He inquired their personal details such as native place, education, occupation and family of all the two hundred youths individually, and made everyone of them immensely happy. He also presented a silver cup as a memento from Kanchi Matam for their seva.

Like the cherry on the ice cream, Paramacharya ended the interview with a tasty, three-course dinner to the youths.
.........

In the year 1924, Kaveri and Kollidam were overflowing with floods that threatened to merge them into a single river. Tiruvaiyaru and its surroundings were the worst affected by the floods. At that time, for nearly fifteen days, cartloads of cooked food were sent from Kanchi Matam for the thousands of poor people in the area. The food was served by the Congress workers under the supervision of Lawyer Sarangapani Iyengar, leader of the Tiruvaiyaru Congress Committee.

The daily culinary needs of SriMatam were reduced to the minimum, in order to use the stored provisions for feeding the poor. They worshipped the great sage who fed them as God.

The press praised this social service as the largest till then by a Sanatana Religious Institution.
.........

During the last days of the year 1931, the persecution of the Congress workers by the British government was at its peak. People and organizations were warned of stern action against any support for the Congress members.

Paramacharya was camping at Arani in the North Arcot district. A group of Congress members wanted to meet him. The Matam officials informed the sage that his meeting the Congress workers might create problems for SriMatam.

Paramacharya heard their apprehensions with concern and then said calmly, "Ask all the members of the group to come here. Also arrange for feeding them from SriMatam."

The stunned Matam officials carried out the orders of the sage with consternation, but there was no problem from the government.

When the Manager brought the happy news of no reaction from the British government, Paramacharya said, "If I were to close the doors on people who want to meet me, I would not be fit to carry the title Jagatguru and sit on the throne of this Peetam."
.........

Paramacharya used to quote the Tamil saying 'Feed everyone, without any distinction' (yArkkum idumin, avar ivar ennnanmin) and explain that no distinction of any kind must be entertained in offering food. He would be delighted to explain the Keralite tradition of feeding even the thieves at night! This custom existed in the place called Cherukkunnam, Kerala, in the Annapurani temple. After feeding the bhaktas in the temple, food packets were prepared and kept tied to the trees in the night, for the use of any prowling thieves.

Paramacharya also took delight in explaining the reference in the Sagam Literature of how the Chera king Udhiyan Cheraladhan earned the name Perum Sotru Cheraladhan (the king who was the chief host) by feeding the opposite camps of the Pandavas and the Kauravas during the Mahabharata war.

Kannappan the hunter fed Shiva Mahadev. Guhan the hunter fed Sri Rama. Here, the hunters named the Senjus of the Srisailam forest area were fed by the Paramacharaya!

During the 1934s, when the road transport facilities were very scanty, Paramacharya was traveling with his entourage in the desolate forests of Srisailam. Somewhere on the way, they came across the Senju hunters. Mistaking them for their foes, the hunters raised their bow and arrows initially, but when they saw the sage with his divya tejas, they realized their mistake and became friendly.

The people who came to oppose their passage became their security guards, carrying their luggage and watching over their camps at night time. Only after safely seeing off Paramacharya and his entourage at their next destination, the hunters assembled before them to take leave.

Paramacharya ordered the manager to give them some cash, but they refused to touch the money. The leader of the group said something to the manager, who nodded his head in disapproval and spread out his hands.

Paramachara snapped his fingers and called the manager to attention: "What is it that he asks for and you refuse?"

"They want to show their dancing skills before Periyavaa".

"So you told them that I can't see their dance because it was your opinion as manager that it was beneath the dignity of SriMatam."

There was not any trace of anger in Paramacharya's words. The manager was silent.

And the Paramacharya, who would not witness the performance of even the great and popular dance artistes, gave them permission to dance before him, with a condition: that while any of their males could dance, only those females who hadn't attained puberty could join the males in dance.

Paramacharya asked them, "you might have different types of dances to suit different occasions: one for Swami (God), one for victory, one for sports and so on. What type of dance are you going to perform now?"

They gave a telling reply: "We are going to perform the dance reserved only for the closest of our relatives."

Paramacharya witnessed their dance, blessed them, and hosted a nice dinner for them.
.........

A wealthy landlord in Thanjavur district had undertaken the biksha on that day. Paramacharya had ordered him to prepare a large number of laddus.

Only a small group of people which included SriMatam officials and the family and relatives of the host was present for the dinner on that day. The landlord couldn't understand the reason for the large number of laddus. Perhaps Paramacharya wished to send the pack to an orphanage or a vedic institution, he thought.

Contrary to his wont, Paramacharya supervised the diner's rows. He ordered for serving two and more laddus to each diner, even if they were in excess, ignoring the individual's protests.

After making another strage announcement, Paramacharya went to his room. The anouncement was that it was not compulsory to eat all the laddus though Periyavaa himself ordered it, and that the excess numbers might be wasted!

Nobody could understand the strange announcement from Paramacharya who usually advises children that anna lakshmi should not be sent to the dust bins. Everyone had to leave the excess number of laddus on their banana leaves.

Since it was an order from Paramacharya, the laddus were made professionally, embedded with cashew nuts, dry grapes, clove, and cardamom. Now these embeddings from the leftover laddu globes were winking at the landlord, who tried to pacify his mind that Paramacharya wouldn't order anything without a valid reason.

Later, during his conversation with the host, Paramacharya told the landlord, "Go and check the backyard where the leftovers are thrown."

When the landlord went to the backyard, he saw familes of the kurava clan avidly eating the left over laddus. As they saw the landlord, they heartily thanked him for the tasty dish that was never before served to them.

The landlord felt happy and grateful. When he returned to Paramacharya, the sage said, "As per their kula dharma, these kurava clan prefer only ucchishtam. They wouldn't consent to have an anna dhanam. Such is the rule among them. Don't they have the same mouth and stomach as we? It occurred to me to give them the same kind of laddus that we have in our dinner. And I thought only you could do it well. Now, only you have their good wishes."
.........

After the maravas and the kuravas, it was the turn of paraiyas.

Paramacharya was travelling in the Kodavasal - Koradacherry route. On the way in Tirukklambur, the slum people met him and submitted their humble offerings.

Paramacharya heard their welfare and woes. Unhurriedly, he discussed the details with the manager as to what SriMatam could do to mitigate their woes, either in their own capacity or with the charity of affordable devotees.

The managers and the other officials started worrying about the ensuing delay for their next camp and the following pujas. The god of the poor, however, seated himself among them, and ordered dhotis and saris for every nandan - nandini from the local textile shop. If that shop didn't have the required goods, Paramacharya ordered them bought at Kodavasal. He also ordered prepartion of thick sambar rice under the shades of the trees.

The manager was worried that the two or three hours time spent in these activities would delay reaching their next camp and that it would be very tedious for Periyavaa to undertake the long puja thereafter.

When he started to express his feeings, Paramacharya said simply, "this is also a puja."
.........

Two years after his Varanasi trip, when Paramacharya was returning, he had to camp for three days in the Kyonjer samastanam of the hilly areas. His heart overflew with campassion at the pitiable conditions of the tribals in the area. He told the manager, "for all the three days we stay here, we should arrange to feed them."

The manager hesitated with a request, "Those people are over a hundred and fifty families. We don't have the facilities to cook food here."

"Then give them as uluppai", replied the sage.

Giving as uluppai is giving supplies of food articles, vegetables and fruits. For three days the tribals enjoyed the bounty of SriMatam.

In the same way, Paramacharya ordered serving three days supplies to the suffering employees of a circus company in Ilayattankudi, that was closed down.
.........

It seems that there was only one occasion in the history of SriMatam, when rice and other food supplies were carried on the back of the SriMatam elephant! Paramacharya, the udAra murti created history with such an incident, to fill the udarams of the poor harijan people.

It was November 1940. The village was heavily flooded when Paramacharya reached Tiruchettankudi from Tirumarukal. News reached his ears that over five hundred harijans in the area were suffering, as a hailstorm lashed on.

Paramacharya hastened the officials to rush them food supplies, but was informed that it was not possible for bullock carts to pass through the rain inundated roads.

"Then you send the supplies on the back of the elephant. This place is known as Ganapateesvaram," said Paramacharya, poining out the harmony. "So Pillaiyar will be happy that an elephant partakes the jana seva."
.........

The dog, according to shastras is of a low birth. The Guardian of Shastra also extended his bounty to the dogs.

In the year 1927, a dog came to SriMatam camp on its own and started keeping vigil. After his biksha was over, Paramacharya ordered that the dog be fed. Strangely, after tasting the food from the matam, the dog stopped accepting food from anyone else.

The dog used to trot under the palanquin known as mena which carried Paramacharya. Sometimes it would run between the massive, moving legs of the elephant! When the palanquin was parked, it would step aside to a distance and watch the sage descend and walk, wagging its tail.

At one time, the officials thought that the dog had become mad and ordered a servant to leave it in a village, about forty kilometers away from their camp. No sooner had the servant returned, than the dog also had got back to the camp! From that time, until its death, the dog kept vigil and also kept a vow not to take food until it had a darshan of Paramacharya.

As he resumed his divine duties after a short rest following his biksha, Paramacharya would first inquire if the dog was fed.
.........

There was an incident when Paramacharya served food for an entire army of dogs.

He was observing chAturmAsyam at Vasanta Krishnapuram near Tirukkovalur in the year 1947. The peak of Tiruvannamalai hill, about twenty kilometers away, was visible from that place. Paramacharya used to perform a puja for the mountain that was Lord Siva's form at where he stayed, with a darshan of the peak.

During one such puja, when he was meditating, a dog came and put its mouth to the water in the kamandaluh. The people around were very much upset by this happening, and a devotee who was a retired government official, stoned the dog, which ran howling, and stopped at a safe distance.

Paramacharya's eyes opened at the anxious hubbub. He looked at the people aroud him and ordered: "Collect all the available dishes from the houses of the agrahAram. Also bring bucketfuls of water."

The volunteers group that included retired official went around and brought the food and water. As Paramacharya gestured, the dog that was standing at a distance came near and stopped hesitatingly. As he gestured a second time, soemthing very strange happened.

An army of dogs came from nowhere and calmly arranged themselves in a row, without showing any signs of hurry for the food that was before them. Paramacharya offered food and water to the dogs through the retired official who had stoned the dog earlier.
.........

Since the beginning of 1964, Paramacharya asked the rice donors to send the rice bags to the Rameswaram branch of SriMatam. This seemed rather strange and the manager took exception to the excessive collection of rice bags at their Rameswaram branch. There were even occasions that suggested that the manager was not at all happy with the decision and might have an argument with the sage. Paramacharya, however, was adamant, and ensured that 250 bags of rice were stocked in their Rameswaram branch.

During the month of December 1964, Rameswaram was hit by a severe cyclone. The Pamban bridge was uprooted and Dhanushkoti town sank in the ocean. It became impossible to send food supplies to the Rameswaram island, overcoming the rage of the ocean.

The 250 bags of rice that was stocked by Paramacharya in the Rameswaram branch of SriMatam helped to fill the stomach of thousands of people who suffered from the nature's fury.
.........

Glossary
anna dhanam - an offering of food
anna lakshmi - the goddess of food and bounty
biksha - hosting a satvic dinner; also offering food to a sannyasi.
divya tejas - divine splendour
harijan - Hari's people, a name for the meek and lowly
jana seva - service to the people
kula dharma - dharma of the family
kurava - a nomad tribe who sells small ornaments
laddu - a sweet delicacy, globular in size
marava - warriors and hunters
nandan - nandini - son and daughter
paraiya - people living in slums
samastanam - a region ruled by a king
sambar rice - a dish in a South Indian meal
ucchishtam - remnants of food eaten by others
udAra murti - a figure of bounty
udaram - stomach
uluppai - supplies of raw material of food

saidevo
01 December 2006, 10:52 PM
Disclaimer for my Translated Materials

These English translations done by me of Paramacharya darshan and experiences of devotees from their original presentations in print and other media are posted here with the sole intention of carrying the divine message of Paramachaya to the members of this Forum, for a discussion among the members so as to understand and practice the directions contained in the message.

As a translator, I have no commercial interests or financial considerations in spreading Paramacharya's message and darshan experiences, and have no claims of copyright for the translations.

I have duly quoted the source of these translations, and I hereby acknowledge the credits to the publications, authors, devotees and any other people concerned. Since Paramacharya is the real source, I understand that the original credit of these materials accrues to SriMatam, Kanchipuram followed by the other people involved in spreading Paramacharya's message.

If anyone involved with these publications has any reservations on the implicit consents and permissions assumed in these translations, for the spiritual benefit of mankind, the same may be brought to the notice of the Forum Administrator, for necessary changes or removal of the material presented.

'saidevo', as translator of the materials presented.

yajvan
19 September 2007, 04:17 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~



From Bhagavad Gita

The food also which is dear to each is threefold. -– Gita,17.7

That food which increases life, purity, strength, health, joy and cheerfulness, which are savoury and oleaginous, substantial and agreeable, are dear to the Sattwic (pure) people. -– Gita, 17. 8

The foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning are liked by the Rajasic and are productive of pain, grief and disease. -- Gita 17. 9

That which is stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten and impure refuse, is the food liked by the Tamasic. -– Gita, 17.10

From Sattwa (purity) arises wisdom or knowledge; from Rajas (passion) arises greed; and from Tamas (inertia) arises heedlessness, delusion and ignorance. -- Gita, 14.17

Verily Yoga is not possible for him who eats too much, nor for him who does not eat at all, nor for him who sleeps too much nor for him who is always awake. -- Gita 6.16

From Manu Smriti

Garlic, leeks and onions, mushrooms and (all plants) springing from impure (substances) are unfit to be eaten by twice-born men.


We talk much about the food we ingest... This food I have mentioned in past post also include what is taken in via eyes, ears, nose, and not just the mouth - so say the wise.

Yet I have been thinking of late of the direction Krsna suggest for classifying the food as satvic, rajasic and tamasic.

If one thinks about a vegetarian offer of fruits and vegetables, these 'fresh' foods are alive, fresh from the garden, and wholesome. They are alive as they grow, take in nutrients, and the like, and then we consume them. Yet the satvic ones are sweet , agreeable, etc. they also can contain the hightest level of 'order'.

I have heard the fresher the food, the more 'order' one takes into to their bodies. As things are older, and being to decompose ( meat, canned foods, food store too long in the refrig, and the like), one is eating tamasic and less 'order'. This notion of order is the thought that our bodies use this to rebuild and nutrify the system with less effort.
This is not my idea, just one I have listened to in a lecture some time back.

So, why not the onion, mushrooms and the like? The tamaisc influence is there I suspect and influences ones mind/consciousness.

That said, I have been on a veg diet for some time ( 35 years +/-); I also do not use onion, garlic, mushrooms, etc. Yet over the weekend I was a guest and did in fact have garlic offered in a meal. I could tell the difference in me several hours later. My behavior did not change, but clarity of thought was absent. I could tell the difference.

With many foods, it is the contrast one experiences that suggests there is an influence. Hence for those that may not see the difference, an experiment of this nature ( to satisfy ones curiosity) may be of interest.

So the question would be what changes could I expect if I had garlic for a few days? and added other foods I usually do not ingest? I do not have the desire for this, as I cannot be without clarity of mind, but it would interesting to see any behavioral changes.

Has anyone noticed this ? or experimented with food combinations? Its easy to see what the affects of alcohol , but of a pickle or onion, we are on a different level of refinement. Most I talk to say what is first to go, is the quality of ones meditation.

Just an idea... if you have some personal experiences on this matter it would be interesting to read.

pranams.

Eastern Mind
19 September 2007, 05:17 PM
Yajvan: I think everyone's metabolism is different, therefore personal experiential knowledge of different foods is ideal. Of course we need to be physically aware first. Many people just aren't. But I have a different question. Who here eats brown rice? The white rice common to China, and India has been proven scientifically time and again to be inferior to whole grain brown rice. Personally I get very 'backed up' from a steady diet of white rice, because of the less fibre in it. Here my fellow Hindus from the east have practically never heard of brown rice, and consider it 'inferior'. What do Indians have against brown rice? Is it historical? Was it a caste thing? Was it the British influence? Or maybe its just the fact that brown rice takes longer to cook, and there is less fuel for fire in India? Just curious. Aum Namashivaya

yajvan
19 September 2007, 06:43 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~


Yajvan: I think everyone's metabolism is different, therefore personal experiential knowledge of different foods is ideal. Of course we need to be physically aware first. Many people just aren't. But I have a different question. Who here eats brown rice? The white rice common to China, and India has been proven scientifically time and again to be inferior to whole grain brown rice. Personally I get very 'backed up' from a steady diet of white rice, because of the less fibre in it. Here my fellow Hindus from the east have practically never heard of brown rice, and consider it 'inferior'. What do Indians have against brown rice? Is it historical? Was it a caste thing? Was it the British influence? Or maybe its just the fact that brown rice takes longer to cook, and there is less fuel for fire in India? Just curious. Aum Namashivaya

Namste EM,
you bring up a good point as various constitutions ( vata, pitta, kahpa) are in play.
I am a brown rice eater as of late, yet ayurved suggests brown rice aggrevates pita dosa. I have not noticed this. I was for years a white rice eater ( switched from brown) and enjoyed the flavor (basmati) more then brown. Now I consume brown for the fibre with ghee. A nice balance.

I also have heard it is inferior to white, but not by doctors.

With brown rice - I found if you let it soak before cooking ( say an hour )or so, it produces a better texture and flavor.

Any way, I still would find it interesting if folks are attunes to their eating habits and if a different ingredient of sattva, tamas, or rajas gives a different effect.

thanks for the post.

Hiwaunis
22 September 2007, 03:39 PM
:D
are you joking!

I eat a ton of onions in food and along with my food. I can not enjoy my food without raw onions!
I also never use any perfumes but fortunately still employed since graduation!

:D
Om Shanti,
I am confused. Is there not a conversation between Lord krishna and Arjuna about not eating onions and garlic?

Namaste,
Hiwaunis

Hiwaunis
22 September 2007, 03:53 PM
Om Shanti,
A few years ago a friend of mine and I started eating at Indian restaurants. Is the food cooked there considered vegetarian according to the Gita? I have also noticed Indian food prepackaged in Indian stores. What is the quality of that food? Is that food good for one's spiritual progess? Although I love the taste of Indian food I have stopped eating it because I think it is too hot and spicy. Any suggestions on what I can eat?

Namaste,
Hiwaunis

Eastern Mind
22 September 2007, 05:44 PM
Namaste Hiwaunis: Unless the Indian restaurant is declared as a vegetarian one, there is a great likelihood that their 'vegetarian fare' is at least cooked in dishes that are also used for meat. You can ask the host, I suppose. There is no standard 'vegetarianism according to the scriptures' in Hinduism, because of the wide variety of scriptures, guru teachings etc. The onion/garlic debate above is a good example above. It can be found "don't eat garlic' in sripture, and yet other scriptures don't mention it.
I think most prepackaged food is inferior to 'organic and fresh' , but that too would vary a lot on what you mean by prepackaging. Frozen or dried foods, for example lose far less of their nutrients than canned food. As far as the spiciness is concerned, if you cook your own food fresh, you can add as little or as much spice as you wish. Spices also vary according to geography within India, and even moreso within the British 'indentured labour history' places like Fiji and the Caribbean. Personally, my most common Indian food is South Indian, and I find it often has too much oil and salt for my health liking. I love the taste, but remember, we are not feeding our tastebuds, we're feeding our bodies, and there is more and more scientific evidence supporting that we eat too much salt. And SUGAR, but that's another post in itself. AUM Namashivaya

Hiwaunis
22 September 2007, 10:59 PM
Om Shanti,
I would love to cook my own food but I don't know the names of most of the vegetarian Indian foods or spices. I don't want to eat onions or garlic because I can smell it on other people's body and breath. I don't want to take the chance of being offensive.

Any input on where I can get some good recipes from?

Namaste,
Hiwaunis

Eastern Mind
23 September 2007, 06:24 AM
Hiwaunis: All the major bookstores would have Indian cookbooks. So does Amazon.com. If you have access to an Indian grocery, that would be a good place to start. The spices are different, and often would not be in regular smaller western stores. The common dhal of the south is the same as the red lentil you do find in western shops in the beans and lentil section. It is easy to cook. My advice would be to get out there and ask, I guess. Depends where you are in the US. A lot of the veggies are the same..cauliflower, potato etc, and you can basically use any vegetable in any recipe. Coriander is the same thing as cilantro (mexican.. think guacomole). I know when we lived 120 miles from a major city, when we did get to the city, we stocked up at an Indian store. Good luck. Aum Namashivaya

saidevo
23 September 2007, 09:29 AM
Namaste Hiwaunis.


Om Shanti,
I would love to cook my own food but I don't know the names of most of the vegetarian Indian foods or spices.

Any input on where I can get some good recipes from?
Hiwaunis

Here are two good books of vegetarian recipes of Indian/South Indian food:

Cooking Manual (Recipes Collection)
http://www.esnips.com/doc/f834649c-1ae3-4484-b002-36fc02631aa6/cooking

Covers over 300 dishes of meals and snacks!

Chapati (The Indian Bread)
http://www.esnips.com/doc/8229f198-8524-4b8e-8087-4aca77dcbb4b/chapati

For packed Indian vegetarian food, check:
http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=311

Other links to vegetarian food in general:

7 Mistakes Even Safe Cooks Make (Anna Roufous)
http://www.esnips.com/doc/721ac50e-e570-4e0f-bd89-20f3f980cabc/7-Mistakes-Even-Safe-Cooks-Make

The Allinson Vegetarian Cookbook
http://www.esnips.com/doc/6dcc6ebe-2bc3-4241-8a45-5ea961866483/The-Allinson-Vegetarian-Cookbook

A Taste of Vitality (Mark Foy)
http://www.vitalita.com/docs/ATasteOfVitality.pdf

Chinese Vegetarian Cooking Recipes
http://www.esnips.com/doc/61643904-7c3f-4536-9f78-e97bff4d6337/Chinese-Vegetarian-Cooking-Recipes

Healthy Recipes
http://www.esnips.com/doc/f67f108a-4754-43e1-a996-5fdfd9af73b6/Recipes

Your Guide to Becoming a Vegetarian
http://www.theobesityproject.com/Bonus/vegetarian.pdf

Some popular Websites of this category:
http://www.bawarchi.com/contribution/contrib4977.html
http://www.recipezaar.com/75760
http://vegweb.com/
http://ramsss.com/

yajvan
23 September 2007, 10:23 AM
Hari Om
~~~~~

Om Shanti,
I would love to cook my own food but I don't know the names of most of the vegetarian Indian foods or spices. I don't want to eat onions or garlic because I can smell it on other people's body and breath. I don't want to take the chance of being offensive. Any input on where I can get some good recipes from? Namaste,
Hiwaunis


Namste Hiwaunis,

Thank saidevo for his reference list... excellent.
IMHO starting simple is good. What is simple? Rice + Beans + Veggies.
You can't imagine how many things you can do with this. Dhal is very easy to make... Dhal over rice is a great meal. With steamed veggies on the side, you have meal 1 ready to go.


Now how much spice do you like is key as you can add as you see fit. For me I put in oh 8 to 10 spices ( that does not mean hot).

Some like dhal with mung bean, some made of lentil, etc. Rice can be white or brown. For me, I also add ghee ( ghurta). It stimulates ojas, balances the dathus ( from ayurved) , etc. so does the spices. My intent to to nurish and insure I can offer the 6 tastes to the body while enjoying the meal.
6 tastes:
Sweet
Sour
Salty
Astringent
Pungent
Bitter

Interesting to note that these 6 tastes address the graha's (planets)...
Ghee is nourishing to all body types and is increases ojas that is fundamental to overall well being, so the experts say.

Many can inform you on how to make dhal ... this can be your start
a. http://fooddownunder.com/cgi-bin/recipe.cgi?r=89471 b. http://www.theepicentre.com/Recipes/idhal.html
- you do not have to add any ingredient you do not want to ingest, it still turns out good; subsititute the celery for the onions, is one idea.

If this is too much for square one, then steamed veggies on top of rice (add ghee to the boiling of the rice, a tablespoon or 2) and you are good to go. Add a few pinches of turmeric to the water also and you've yellow rice.

What are my favorite herbs that are tasty , nutritional and good for ones body constitution?
basil
ginger ( ignites agni for digestion)
turmeric
cinnamon
sage
bay leaf power
coriander
dill ( most excellent!)
mustard seeds a and powder
fennel
paprika
cumin
fenugreek (power)
oregano
curry powder (as it contains many of the things above)

One needs to experiment with the mixtures - for me, always starting simple works. A pinch of this, and pinch of that to see what goes together.


Other stuff I use and add in.
Sesame seeds
fenugreek seeds
black sesames
poppy seeds
ghee as mentioned


what I use sparingly to not at all, due to my body constitution
- salt and pepper
- garlic
- onions
- mushrooms
- pickles ( too much sour influence)

hope this helps... just a few ideas.

pranams,

Hiwaunis
23 September 2007, 11:14 AM
Om Shanti,
Thank you everyone! This is exactly the information that I was looking for! Definitely most excellent!

Namaste,
Hiwaunis

saidevo
17 October 2007, 01:07 PM
Come with Me and Partake a South Indian Meal

A South Indian meal is a blend of tastes, flavours, nutrition and spirituality. Partaking it is an experience for the body, mind and spirit.

Having been invited to partake a South Indian Meal in the home of a traditional brahmin family and gladly accepting it, we both visit a house in the agrahAram of a village where the Hindu tradition and culture is flourishing eternally, rejecting all counter influences. (Whether such a village exists in South India today is a difficult question to answer, but we are partaking only a virtual, what-it-used-to-be sort of South Indian meal here).

Welcoming the guests

The 'you' in this narrative is anyone who is unfamiliar with the experience of partaking a traditional South Indian meal, typically a Western non-Hindu. The 'family' we are visiting is a vedic brahmin family. Though orthodox, the elders of the family are only too glad to invite us to dine with them.

I have already briefed you about the prevailing Hindu dining customs that include sitting cross-legged on the floor, using only the right hand to pick up and eat, not to sip the water straight from the tumbler but to raise the tumbler and pour water into your mouth, waiting till all the dishes are served and the elders start eating after a prayer, remaining silent during the meal session and so on, so you wouldn't find it too hard or odd to follow suit.

The head of the family ('Father' henceforth) and his 'old man' ('Grandpa' henceforth) welcome us at their raised portico called 'thiNNai', joining their palms and saying "vAngo! (please come)" in Tamil. You notice that it is a typical street house in a village, with an elaborate and colorful kolam (decorative artwork drawn on the floor with flour) drawn at its threshold.

You also notice that both Father and Grandpa are wearing their dhoties in the pancha katcham* style, the upper part of their bodies covered by a shoulder cloth known as uttarIyam. Three stripes of dazzling white vibhUti (holy ash) shine on their forehead, arms, forearms, near the wrists and on their chest (visible through their thin uttarIyam). Grandpa is wearing a large rudrAksha bead, a narrow band of gold running over its central rim. The holy threads worn across their bodies appear partially at their hips, where the uttarIyam reveals them. (I have already briefed you that these two men are great Vedic scholars with good fluency in English and Western Philosophy.)

The elders lead us through a narrow corridor (known as 'nadai' or passage in Tamil) with two closed rooms on the left, to a wide hall and then into a courtyard* in the middle of the house. The courtyard is open to the sky at its center, which is a big square of depressed structure paved with large stones, a pair of steps leading down to it. A tuLasi mAdam (Tulsi plant set on a raised structure) and water pump with a large iron bucket of water under it are seen in the open area. The backyard of the house is seen on the opposite side, where the bath room and toilet are located, beyond which is a small garden.

Father waits for us after getting down to the water pump in the wash area, holding a small brass pot of water for us to wash our feet and palms before we partake the meal. You thank him as you receive the pot, do the washing chore and then fill the pot with water from the bucket and extend it to me.

Father says, "'atithi devo bhava*' is an important Hindu dharmic statement. It means 'the guest becomes a god' when he visits a home for dinner and is entitled to the kind of hospitality that would be given to a Deva (demigod). We are really blessed to have you as our guest today."

South Indian mealware

I can see you blush slightly at such eulogy as we ascend the steps and move to our left where four large banana leaves are spread on the floor, backed by wooden Asanas to sit on. We sit cross-legged on the wooden planks and wait for the meal to be served. While we have our seats adjacent to the wall, Father sits opposit us, with Grandpa at his left, leaving in between a passage area of over six feet wide for the women to walk over and serve the food.

At one end of the verandah where we are seated is the kitchen. At the other is the puja room. An old woman (Grandma) is sitting on the floor, stretching her left leg and folding her right leg over it, keenly watching the dinner proceedings through her sharp eyes that knew of no eyeglasses. Her fingers move the beads of a rosary as she silently chants a mantra.

"The posture of sitting cross-legged, you know, is known as sukhAsana in yoga", says Father. "It is the best posture for dining. It orients the biceps forward and loosens up shoulders and the upper part of the belly, making it easy to breath. It also opens the hips and the groin area and gives a good grounding for the body that allows the mind to relax. Are you comfortable sitting cross-legged there?"

"I do some yogic exercises that include this posture, so no problem", you reply smiling, as you watch the crows busy on top of the compound wall opposite us, pecking at the sample feed.

Non-human guests have precedence!

"The crow is a sort of VIP for us Hindus," Father says, looking at you. "Our scriptures exhort us to feed the lower beings first before partaking a meal. The kolam artworks at our threshold is drawn using rice floor that is feed for the ants. We used to have a cow some years back. The cow and the crow were regularly fed in the mornings with the same food that we partake. The crow being the vehicle of Lord Shani, feeding it also amounts to appeasing that god."

"What happened to the cow?" you ask.

"We sold it off, finding it difficult to maintain it, in the midst of our Vedic activities. Named Lakshmi, she was a favourite of the entire household."

On the left of our leaf-plate, a small bronze pot and tumbler filled with water are placed. You regard a pair of cups made of cut banana leaf, placed at the left corner. Father explains that this cup is called a dhonnai in Tamil. one of them is used to drink pAyasam, while the other is used by the diner to drop any leftovers, so it would be easy for the women to fold up and throw away the leaf-plates after the meal session. The banana leaves have already been sprinkled with water and cleaned for our convenience, though this is usually done by the diner after he takes his seat.

Amma, serve the food!

"Amma, you can start serving", Father calls out towards the kitchen on his left.

Two women, wearing tucked saris (worn by traditional married Brahmin women in a style known as Madisar) appear at the entrance to the kitchen. Mother serves pAyasam to start with and places a small quantity of it at the right bottom corner of our leaf plate. Daughter follows her to serve the cucumber pacchidi (salad), placing it at the top right corner.

As they get back to the kitchen to serve other padArtha (dishes), Father says, "A South Indian meal is served according to a bhojana kramam (food order). A little of pAyasam is served and tasted first in a feast, as it is customary to start eating with a sweet dish. Actual serving of the pAyasam as dessert will be after the course with rasam. Actually the term pAyasam indicates a delicacy prepared by cooking rice in boiling milk and adding jaggery, ghee-fried cashews, raisins, cardamom powder and two or three crystals of pacchai karpUram (menthol). What we have today is the same as what is known as Sweet Pongal, though a bit more fluid, to fit the name pAyasam. These days we have all sorts of pAyasams made by cooking lentils, vermicelli, battered rice or ravA (ground wheat). The semiA pAyasam made of milk, vermicilli and sugar is a favourite with children.

"The pacchidi is a condiment based on yogurt (curd) and used as a sauce or dip; usually prepared with cut or mashed vegetables such as cucumber, onion or carrot or all of them mixed. Served at room temperature or chill, it has a cooling effect on the palate and serves as a foil for other spicy dishes to follow. It is called raitA in the North and is a popular condiment served with their different kinds of roties. The onion raitA is a good accompaniment for the Vegetable Pulav. For our Tamil New Year day, we have an additional special pacchidi made of the tiny neem flowers to remind us that life can sometimes be bitter in its many passing phases."

Mother and Daughter serve three types of vegetable curries, placing them to the left of pacchidi. We notice that one is a cabbage curry with green peas and ground coconut added, another is a curry of lady's fingers (okra) and the third is a curry of finely cut stems of the banana tree.

"Do you know that okra seeds were roasted and ground and used as a substitute for coffee whose imports were disrupted by the American Civil War in 1861?" says Father. "Okra is a favourite vegetable of everyone and can be used in curry, salad or sAmbAr or even taken raw. You might find the banana stem curry a bit difficult to swallow after masticating it, but do swallow it for it is full of fibre."

In their next turn, Mother serves the avial to the left of the curries, and Daughter places a pair of vadais at the leftmost bottom. This is followed by appalam, placed over the vadais, two kinds of pickles, lemon and mango in the form of mAvadu, placed on the left extreme at the top and a pinch of salt below them.

Father says, "That completes the vegetarian side dishes. We usually have a kootu which is a kind of stew of a single vegetable for our daily meal and avial in feasts. The avial is a specially enhanced form of kootu with a mixture of vegetables such as potato, yam, colacasia (sEmbu), raw banana, brinjal, beans, carrot, white pumpkin, tomato, drumstick--all boiled in separate lots and then mixed with a paste of coconut, cumin seeds, ginger, green chilies, salt and curd and seasoned with curry leaves and a few drops of coconut oil.

"You might find the avial the spiciest and might be tempted to take sips of water in between but don't do it as that will fill up your stomach; instead take the cucumber salad as a foil."

Daughter serves the boiled and salted lentil paste of redgram (called thoor dahl) at the middle of the bottom portion of the leaf plate and waits with a small jar of ghee. Mother serves steaming cooked rice, placing a good quantity of it near the lentil paste. Daughter pours a little melted ghee over the rice.

Father continues his talk: "The redgram paste is an excellent source of protein. Mixing it with rice also enriches the nutrients in the rice.* In Tamilnadu they used to call us brahmins as 'paruppu thinni pAppAn' (dahl eating brahmins) because the dahl is used lavishly in our sAmbAr and rasam whereas the people of other communities usually have puLi kuzhambu with tamarind and much less or no dahl in their preparations.

"You would notice that we don't use spoons to mix food, but use the fingers of our right hand instead..."

"Any specific reason for that or is it just a custom dictated by tradition?" you say. "Since you have ladles, spoons may not be an alien article to you, though a fork might be."

Father smiles. Grandpa speaks for the first time. "Spoons are not certainly alien to us Hindus! You can notice Lord Brahma, who is the Lord of the Four Vedas, holding a wooden spoon in one of his arms in his portrait! Wooden spoons are typically used to scoop and pour ghee into the rising flames in a yajna."

Grandpa reflects for a second and continues with a sparkle in his sharp eyes. "It is a joy to eat with hands! Hands are considered our most precious organs of action. Our hands and feet are said to be the conduits of the five elements--space, air, fire, water and earth. One of the five elements courses through each finger. Through the thumb, aMguSTaH, comes space; through the forefinger, tarjanI, air; through the midfinger, madhyama, fire; through the ring finger, anAmikA, water and through the little finger, kaniSTaka, earth.

"In Vedic tradition, we eat with our hands because the five elements within them begin to transform food and make it digestible even before it reaches the mouth. This transformation also heightens the senses so that we can smell, taste and feel the texture of the foods we are eating. We can also hear the sounds of eating. All of these sensations are a necessary prelude to beckoning agni, the fire of digestion, to ready itself for the meal to come. The Hinduism Today magazine published by the Kauai's Hindu Monastery has a good number of such revealing articles. You may read them on their Website.*"

Starting with a prayer: parisEshaNa mantra

"Now that the annam (rice) is served, we can commence a prayer to sanctify the food we are eating, before we actually start eating," says Granapa. "In the Vedic tradition, every act becomes an act of worship and an act of recognition of the pervasiveness of the Supreme Brahman and Its power. Thus the act of eating is an act of thanksgiving to God, typically preceded by a prayer.

"The Hindu thanksgiving prayer is known as parisEshaNa mantra and is an important part of our bhojana vidhi. This prayer has a dual function: to offer all that we eat to God and his deputies who administer Nature; since these deputies are also present inside our bodily systems, the mantras chanted also regulate their functions.

"parisEsaNam means sprinkling water over and around the food to santify it. My son and I shall now recite some mantras as part of this prayer. You people need not follow suit but just watch and know the meaning and philosophy behind this ritual. We will explain it as we go on."

Grandpa and Father touch the tip of their plates with their left hand. They take some water from their pancha pAtram-uttaraNi (puja cup and small spoon) in the palm of their right hand and pour it through the fingers in drops around their leaf-plates saying the first line of the Gayatra Mantra: 'Aum bhUr bhuva suvahaH'.

Then they sprinkle a little water over the annam, saying the remaining three lines of the Gayatri Mantra: 'tat savitur vareNyam, bhargo devasya dhImahi, dhiyo yo naH prachodayAt'.

Father explains this act thus: "The Gayatri Mantra is addressed to the Sun, the most visible of the gods. Since he is the giver of all food, we first invoke his blessings. Remember it is he who nourishes the agni, the fire and heat necessary for digesting food."

The elderly pandits once again encircle the food with the mantra 'satyam tvartena parishincAmi'. Father explains that this mantra means, 'O food, you are true and I encircle you with divine righteousness.' He says further that from 5 o' clock afternoon this mantra will be replaced by 'Rtam tvA satyena parishincAmi'.

Then they pour one uttaraNi of water onto their palms and sip it saying under their breath, 'amRuthOpastharaNamasi'. Grandpa says, "This mantra is actually to be recited within the mind. amRut ApaH upastaraNam asi: upastaraNam means the act of spreading out under as a substratum. I have invoked the little amount of water I sipped now to spread within me as Amrutam or nectar and form the substratum for the food to follow. Vishnu Purana says that liquid substances should be taken at the beginning and at the end of the meal."

Grandpa elaborates on the significance of drinking some water before and after food: "The Rishis have mentioned in the Upanishads* that realized people, while eating, before and after their meal, 'dress up' the prANa (breath of life) with water. You see, water is a purifier; it also sustains the body. Most Hindu rituals start with sipping water, an act known as Achamanam. The Yoga Shastras recommend that we should fill only half our stomach with food, a quarter with water and the rest should be air. This ideal proportion brings in spiritual and bodily health."

prANAhuti: offering to the vital breaths

Grandpa continues on the next act of the parisEsaNam: "After water, it is now the turn of the air or breath. Water nourishes the body to keep it healthy, but air in the form of life breath sustains the soul and holds it in the driver seat of this bodily vehicle. The life breath or prANa has five functions. prANa is the principal breath coursing through our nostrils and lungs; you can use it to control and regulate your mind and thoughts. apAna is responsible for the excretory activity. samAna circulates around the navel and plays a vital role in digestion. vyAna is diffused through the body and is responsible for circulatory activity. udAna is the wind that goes upward in respiration. These five vital airs together represent the Vaayu deity; they are also infused with agni or fire and Apas or water. Therefore we offer a morsel of annam as Ahuti to these gods, by swallowing the food without biting it. We don't bite it because it is not for personal consumption. Watch how we do it."

Using the thumb, middle and ring fingers of their right hand in a typical mudrA of a deer-head, Father and Grandpa pick a morsel of rice mixed with ghee and throw it straight into their mouth, keeping their heads down. For each such morsel they swallow they recite a line of mantra:

"aum prANAya svAhA | aum apAnAya svAhA | aum vyAnAya svAhA | aum udAnAya svAhA | aum samAnAya svAhA | aum bhrahmaNE svAhA |". Then they drop a little water on the left side, touch it with the ring finger of their left hand and then with that finger touch their chest, while chanting "aum brahmaNi ma AtmA-amRtatvAya".

"This last line of the mantra says, 'May the Self be united with Brahman so it may attain immortality'," says Grandpa. "That completes the parisEsaNam prayer. We can now start eating."

tRupti bhojanam: a satisfactory meal

Since you are unfamiliar with the way to go about mixing and eating the mouthwatering variety of food whose fumes and aroma are linger around your nostrils, you decide to observe Grandpa and follow suit.

Grandpa scoops up the little amount of pAyasam in the plate and eats it with a single slurp. Then he mixes the lentil paste with the required portion of rice, partioning the balance to the left. He makes a small depression in the dhal mixed rice, into which Mother pours two or three ladles of the bitter gourd sAmbAr. Kneading the mixture into convenient scoops he starts eating them one by one, adding from the side dishes to the scoops or taking the side dishes like curry in separate scoops.

As you start preparing your own sAmbAr rice, Grandpa says, "We generally don't talk or discuss things over a meal, except for asking what one wants. The idea is that you should pay complete attention to the details and tastes of the food you are eating. However, today being a special day, I shall describe ways and things. Today's sAmbAr has the bitter gourd or melon as its thAn or chief vegetable to keep its pungency down so it may suit your palate. The bitter gourd kills any worms in the stomach. You may notice that this feast has all the six kinds of tastes. Pungency in sAmbAr and avial, sweetness in the pAyasam, astringency in the banana stem curry, bitterness in the sAmbAr, salt and tamarind diffused through most of the dishes."

In a leisurely rhythm, Grandpa finishes his sAmbAr sAdam, emptying most of the side dishes, and waits for others to catch up. Mother and Daughter walk to and fro, asking to serve more helpings of the side dishes. They gently compel us the guests by filling up whatever side dishes we empty, while the elders have their own preferences of quantity to take.

When everyone is ready, the second course of rice is served, followed by ladlefuls of tomato rasam. The rasam is less spicy, and tastes heavenly due to its seasoning with coriander leaves and rich tomato. We receive some of it in our palms to drink separately and then mix the rice and rasam to make the rasam sAdam which is more fluid than the sAmbAr sAdam. Then we eat them in handfuls, adding scoops of side dishes to the mix and slurping at the juicy rice from our palms. The rice mixed with rasam, true to its name and meaning as the essence, gives us an idea of the sensations of the palate and ear and the joy of eating with the hands that Grandpa spoke about in the beginning.

By now, our plates are almost empty, except for the pickles, vada(i)s and the pinch of salt. Mother walks in to serve pAyAsam as the dessert, and fills up our dhonnais. While we prefer to drink it straight from the leafy cups, and also dip pieces of the vada(i) into the dessert and eat them, the elders pour it onto their plates and slurp it in handful scoops. As he finishes with the pAyAsam, Grandpa gives out a long, loud belch, straightening his back!

The final course of meal is the buttermilk rice. Thick buttermilk seasoned with lemon juice, salt and curry leaves is served to make our buttermilk rice. As we eat it with bites at the pickles, specially the mAvadu, Grandpa says, "As Kanchi Paramacharya has observed, we don't serve the dessert at the end of a meal, but in the middle. The meal is concluded with the buttermilk, whose salt and sour taste is excellent for the teeth."

Father adds to Grandpa's explanation, looking at you. "You like the mAvadu pickle made from tender little raw baby mangoes? The mango tree flowers and fructifies so lavishly, that many raw mangoes are plucked even in their infant stage, before they grow and ripen into fruits. As a seasonal pickle the mAvadu is astringent in taste. Generally astringency is good for health. We also make mango pickles and eat lots of mango fruits in the season. There is a proverb in Tamil about the mango pickles: 'The mango (pickle) will feed the rice that the mAta (mother) cannot feed.'

When everyone has finished eating, the elders pour a little water onto their palm and sip it saying, "amRuthOpastharaNamasi". Then they pour some water in drops around the leaf and say "annadAtA sukhI bhavaH".

Grandpa explains the meaning: "annadAtA sukhI bhavaH is a Sanskrit proverb. It means, 'May the food provider be happy and hearty!' Should we not remember all the people whose labour has gone into the food articles we consumed? This includes the people who cooked the food. As Bhisma said in Mahabarata the physical and mental health of the cooks who prepare the food influences the people who partake the food. This is the reason orthodox brahmins avoid restaurants."

We all wash our hands and feet in the courtyard and then sit to take the tAmbUlam. We put a little of aromatic betel nuts inside our mouth, smear some lime to the back of the betel leaves after washing and cutting their tips and stalks, and munch the mix, enjoying the pungent juice that gets into our throats. Then we spit out the sediment and thoroughly gorgle and wash our mouths. Grandpa explains that the tAmbUlam is meant to stimulate digestion.

When we take leave, the elders give us a gift of pUrNa phalam (unshorn coconut) with betel leaves and nuts and a banana fruit, placing them in a large and shiny brass plate, along with a dhoti and towel. We thank and prostrate to the elders and their wives as they stand in a row and say bye to Daughter.

As we take leave, you say appreciatively, meaning what you say, "I now understand how Hinduism as Sanatana Dharma is not just a religion but a way of life."

Notes:

*atithi devo bhava - Taittiriya Upanishad:
mAtr dEvo bhava pitr dEvO bhava AchArya dEvO bhava atithi dEvO bhava. (Let you be one who worships mother, father, teachers and guests as God.)

*courtyard - for the type of interior courtyard described here, check: http://klkillahs.blogspot.com/2007/05/nals-mudhal-payanam-part-2.html (scroll down for photograph number 7).

*nutrients in rice - http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/5-6/53_food_rice.shtml

*eating with hands - http://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/2001/1-2/2001-1-19.shtml

*sipping water before and after a meal -
Chhandogya Upanishad 5.2.2 & Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 6.1.15

what-is links:

avial - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviyal
curry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry
kootu - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kootu
Madisar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madisar
pacchidi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raita_(condiment)
pancha katcham - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancha
pAyasam - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kheer
ravA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rava_(food)
sukhAsana - http://www.nshouseofyoga.com/Pose-Sukhasana.htm

how-to and recipe links:

Madisar sari, how to wear - http://www.nilacharal.com/anjarai/alangaram/madisar1.html

pancha katcham, how to wear - http://www.siddhashram.org/gaqmaterial.shtml#q07 (faq 7)

avial - http://www.indiaexpress.com/cooking/avial.html
curd rice - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_rice_15.html

curry and kootu - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/8826/Kootu.htm
okra curry - http://www.spiceindiaonline.com/ladys_finger_curry

payasam, rice - http://www.recipezaar.com/24246
payasam, Akkara Adisal - http://grubs-up.blogspot.com/2007/03/akkara-vadisal_12.html
payasam, sweet pongal - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_dessert_12.html
pAyasam, vermicelli - http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_27946,00.html?rsrc=search

pacchidi, cucumber -
http://www.top-indian-recipes.com/cucumber-raita-recipe.htm
http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_salad_06.html

pacchidi, general Indian -
http://www.top-indian-recipes.com/indian-raita-recipes.htm

pickles - http://www.sysindia.com/kitchen/pickles.html
pickles, mavadu - http://www.ammas.com/topics/Cooking/a113880.html
tomato rasam - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_acc_01.html
traditional sambar - http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/3925/recipe_acc_04.html

Glossary:
agrahAram - royal donation of land to Brahmins, land or donation given us. In practical usage, agrahAram refers to the street inhabited by brahmins, which surrounds a temple like a garland being the first street outside the temple, hence the name agra + hAram.

thinnai - (Tamil) a raised sit out at the entrance of a house
dhonnai - cup like vessel made of leaves pinned up at corners
pAyasam - a delicacy in liquid or semi-solid form, usually made by boiling cooked rice with milk and jaggery, and then adding cashews fried in ghee, raisins and powdered cloves.
pacchidi - a condiment based on yogurt, with a soaked vegetable such as cucumber or onion with salt and mashed green chili added for taste

yajvan
19 March 2008, 06:31 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~

From Mahabharata

A Brahmin (priest) should abstain from meat. -- The Mahabharata Anusasana Parva, Section XCIII

The sin of eating meat is ascribed to three causes. That sin may attach to the mind, to words, and to acts. It is for this reason that men of wisdom who are endued with penances refrain from eating meat. -- The Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Section CXIV

Well-dressed, cooked with salt or without salt, meat, in whatever form one may take it, gradually attracts the mind and enslaves it. -- The Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva, Section CXIV



Namaste,
We have talked often of the notion of eating meat. My initial post said

The notion of sattvic food extends beyond the the nourishment of the 6 tastes in Ayurved. The notion of 'food' and 'eating' in the ved extends to all the senses. That is, what we take in. Food is considered ahara or what is brought near to us. It has come to be called food as we ingest it.

As I am reading the Mahabharata, and the information above offered by saidevo, I thought I would add to this. What is my purpose? It is surely not to try and convince anyone of changing their diet, but to offer what the wise say on this matter.

In the Anusasana Parva, section CXV ( or section 115) Yudhishtrhira³ asks Bishma² a few questions.
He says, you ( Bishma) have informed me many times that the abstention from injury is the highest religion. Yet in sraddhas, however, that are performed in honour of the Pitris, persons for their own good should make offerings of diverse kinds of meat.

How can meat be procured without slaying a living creature?
What are the faults one incurs by eating meat?
What are the demerits one incurs who eats meat by killing a living creature? Or of him who eats meat buying it from others?Bishma then says, Listen to me O scion of the Kuru race, what the merit is that attaches to the abstention from me.

Those high souled persons who desire beauty, faultlessness of limbs, long life, understanding, mental and physical strength, and memory should abstain from acts of injury.
The merit by a person with steadfastness of vow adores the deities every month in horse sacrifices¹ is equal to him that discards honey and meat.
The seven rishis, the Valakhilyasm and the rishis that drink the rays of the sun applaud the abstention from meat.
Bishma continues and says, Narada muni has said that the man who wishes to increase his own flesh by eating the flesh of other creatures meets with calamity.
The man who has eaten meat then gives it up acquires merit by such an act that is so great that a study of all the vedas or a performance of all the sacrifices cannot bestow its like ( or its equal).
The period of life is shortened of persons who slaughter living creatures or cause them to be slaughtered ( i.e. demand for meat).
One should never eat meat of animals not dedicated in sacrifices and that are slain for no reason.I thought those were the interesting parts... there is more that is offered, yet I did not what to burden the reader with a zillion points. One can read this section for themselves and extract the value as they see fit.

pranams


1. Ashvamedha
2. The bhAghavataM says that there are only twelve men in the whole world who know the ins and outs of dharma in all its subtlety. These twelve are: BrahmA, the Creator; Narada, the roving sage; Lord Siva; Lord SubrahmaNya; the sage Kapila; Manu the law-giver; the boy-devotee Prahlada; King Janaka; Bhishma; King Bali; the boy-sage Suka, the reciter of the bhAgavatam; and Yama, the Lord of Death and Dispenser of Justice.
Thus Bhishma happens to be one of the twelve most knowledgeable people on dharma. It was fitting therefore that when Yudhishtira, at the end of the mahA-bhArata war wanted to know all the subtleties of all the different types of dharma, he was asked to go to Bhishma by Lord Krishna Himself.
3. Yudhishtrhira was the eldest Pandava, son of King Pandu and Queen Kunti if we do not count Karna who was born first. His name is most excellent - it means yudhi or 'in battle' + sthira or 'steady, calm, unperturbed'; so Yudhishtrhira is he that is steady or unperturbed in battle.

saidevo
23 March 2008, 09:31 PM
God's Pharmacy
Posted By: vcx729 Posting Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008 4:26:26 PM CST
http://www.vicina.info/blog/view.htm;jsessionid=ECA022002524E0031D1C28131817547C?id=15
(check this link for pictures of the vegetables)

A sliced carrot looks like the human eye, the pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, bok choy, rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Eggplant, avocadoes and pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? .... It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm cells to overcome male sterility.

Sweet potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries

Grapefruits, oranges, and other citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like body cells. Today's research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.

yajvan
24 March 2008, 03:32 PM
Hari Om
~~~~~

God's Pharmacy
A sliced carrot looks like the human eye, the pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and YES science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.


Namaste Saidevo,
thanks... most interesting. As Ginseng looks like the body ( in toto):

Ginseng root has been used for thousands of years to improve the overall health of the human being.

http://www.catskillginseng.com/images/ginseng/ginseng18.jpg

Ginseng was recommended for enlightening the mind and increasing wisdom.
Ginseng was taken as a tonic for the whole body, and believed to cure lethargy, arthritis, impotence, senility, and many other conditions.
Ginseng is known to be an adaptogen. Adaptogens are substances that assist the body to restore itself to health
Ginseng due to its adaptogens effects is widely used to lower cholesterol, increase energy and endurance, reduce fatique and effects of stress and prevent infections.
Ginseng appears to help people with diabetes. A limited study performed in March 2000 at the University of Toronto showed that ginseng could lower blood sugar 20% more than placebo.1. Ginseng info from this site: http://www.chinese-herbs.org/ginseng/benefits-of-ginseng.html

Jigar
03 April 2008, 07:18 PM
I see you all ( well those of you that do) for watching what you eat. Ultra nourishment is the source for a productive life and household.

mblova
22 July 2008, 09:03 PM
I would like to bring back this topic. Now as mentioned before, eating meat as a brahmin is considered a sin. But in today's society(and i don't want to get into a discussion of caste) many brahmins are not priests anymore. Yet, having done the yagnopavit myself, my family(me included) continue to eat meat(mother has stopped). I have heard instances of brahmins also being fish eaters(but not meat).
Is there any discussion of such an issue in the texts?

atanu
10 July 2009, 11:48 AM
You might be lucky.:)

I have seen some of my colleagues getting warning that someone sitting near them complained. (especially if you have "gas trouble" you will be unapproachable:D )

:D I can whole heartedly agree with this.

Some 10 years back a lady joined my project. She was unapproachable after lunch hour. I thought she took only onions during lunch. I used to sit far from her. She used to use my PC for the project. On such an occassion, a visitor came and we were discussing matters of great importance, when an ominous stench arose and pervaded the room. I knew I was not the culprit so I was confident but the visitor started looking at me very oddly. I had almost the mind to shout "Not me, not me. It is her". But I resisted. Who would believe me? I got up to open all windows.

Now, ZN will say "God is in fart". True but that form of God must be the killer form?

Come to think of it, there have been at least 6 other occassions (not related with onions of course), when some lady or other caused almost death like condition for me. Yajvan Ji are you listening, with your astrology book open?

Om Namah Shivaya

Znanna
10 July 2009, 09:01 PM
Hey, let me tell you, I'll thank Godz for a good belch or whatever! I suppose it's an age thingy :)

More generally, I think that allowing the release of emotion of whatever else, without restriction, also allows the acceptance of surrender.


It is the resistance, the dwelling in the friction of holding back, which is anathema.


Namaste,
ZN

ETA -my dear anatu, you need to feed your women friends white chocolate!

atanu
10 July 2009, 10:11 PM
Hey, let me tell you, I'll thank Godz for a good belch or whatever! I suppose it's an age thingy :)

More generally, I think that allowing the release of emotion of whatever else, without restriction, also allows the acceptance of surrender.

It is the resistance, the dwelling in the friction of holding back, which is anathema.
Namaste,
ZN

ETA -my dear anatu, you need to feed your women friends white chocolate!

Namaste ZN,

I agree. Resistance may cause issuance with noise at most inappropriate times.

And, alas, i do not have unlimited supply of chocolate.

-----------------

While on food let us share another one.

A friend of mine who was working in Kuwait visited me with his wife and two children. He is a typical Brahmin, who are known for their voracious appetite for good food, a habit built through ages due to free meals that Brahmins used to get. By the way, i also am a brahmin and crave food like nothing else.

So, after the meal, my friend belched and burped -- not once but five six times. His children and wife looked at him with disdain, but my friend was like a linga -- unperturbed. He merely said "the beching and burping is a sign of appreciation of excellent food and without these speechless sounds, the lady of the house cannot be commended." My friend's wife and his children were also smiling by the time. My wife enquired them the cause of their smile. The son related.

It seems that in his school the subject was once discussed, when some said that in certain cultures, it is custom to belch loudly in appreciation to hospitality and good food. It seems that the padre (teacher) waited for a moment of pregnant silence and remarked "Ya, I have also heard that in certain other cultures, the appreciation is made known by making the sound from the other end."


No doubt that cultural differences lead to murders also.

Om Namah Shivaya

atanu
01 August 2009, 02:35 PM
Om Shanti,
A few years ago a friend of mine and I started eating at Indian restaurants. Is the food cooked there considered vegetarian according to the Gita? I have also noticed Indian food prepackaged in Indian stores. What is the quality of that food? Is that food good for one's spiritual progess? Although I love the taste of Indian food I have stopped eating it because I think it is too hot and spicy. Any suggestions on what I can eat?

Namaste,
Hiwaunis

What is known as Indian food in Indian restaurants today is much different from wholesome good food to be found in Indian homes. Most restaurants (and also big hotels) dish out a common spicy thick gravy made of onions, garlic and tomato.

I do not think that such spicy food is of any value towards spirituality. This kind of preparation is not indigenous and has hedonistic muslim influence. Lightly cooked vegetable, cereals, fruits, milk, on the other hand, are good.

Yogis are usually encouraged to take low salt food. My personal experience is that the tranquility is better maintained when potassium-sodium balance in blood is OK. Processed food tends to rob us of potassium and increase the level of sodium and this imbalance leads to restlessness.

Om Namah Shivaya

Eastern Mind
01 August 2009, 05:09 PM
Namaste:

There were two things in India that really bothered me about diet. The first was the large amounts of white rice eaten. Natural brown rice was unheard of and not available anywhere I went. Brown rice, besides the extra nutrition, also contains a lot more dietary fibre which increases digestion. When you are used to brown rice, a switch to steady diet of white rice gets you constipated in a day, two at most. Unhealthy situation.

The other is sugar. I remember ordering coffee, and having a cup of sugar, come out with it. When we said 'no sugar' we got this "What? look. Most people here in the west, the general non-healthy person would use one teaspoon at most in their coffee. But the fact of the matter is that you don't need to add sugar AT ALL. The natural sugars in juice, fruit, etc. far exceeds our daily requirements. For me, sugar is POISON.

The British are to blame for both of these huge dietary problems. White (maybe it has to do with skin color, I don't know) is best. Same thing with flour, and bread.

Here I eat basmati brown or California brown all the time. the bread I buy is 12 grain, not that refined white stuff that shouldn't even be called food. Our country is changing. When I was a kid, white bread was 90 % of the market. Now its about 25%. Eventually it'll be 0. Mostly its older people who eat it. Hopefully India can change as well.

Aum Namasivaya

atanu
01 August 2009, 10:23 PM
Namaste:

There were two things in India that really bothered me about diet. The first was the large amounts of white rice eaten. Natural brown rice was unheard of and not available anywhere I went. Brown rice, besides the extra nutrition, also contains a lot more dietary fibre which increases digestion. When you are used to brown rice, a switch to steady diet of white rice gets you constipated in a day, two at most. Unhealthy situation.

The other is sugar. I remember ordering coffee, and having a cup of sugar, come out with it. When we said 'no sugar' we got this "What? look. Most people here in the west, the general non-healthy person would use one teaspoon at most in their coffee. But the fact of the matter is that you don't need to add sugar AT ALL. The natural sugars in juice, fruit, etc. far exceeds our daily requirements. For me, sugar is POISON.

The British are to blame for both of these huge dietary problems. White (maybe it has to do with skin color, I don't know) is best. Same thing with flour, and bread.

Here I eat basmati brown or California brown all the time. the bread I buy is 12 grain, not that refined white stuff that shouldn't even be called food. Our country is changing. When I was a kid, white bread was 90 % of the market. Now its about 25%. Eventually it'll be 0. Mostly its older people who eat it. Hopefully India can change as well.

Aum Namasivaya

Namaste EM,

That was my point. It is like things going in circles and gaining the older states again and again.

Till recently, natural food was the only thing that Indians had. But that changed with external influence (i am careful not to use 'western influence'). There used to be beaten or puffed rice/wheat, which with sweet mangoe and sweetened milk or some salt, pepper, ginger, onion and a dash of mustard oil used to taste fabulous -- at very little cost. Then came the Kellogs and Kurkure. In all spheres of life, Indians en-masse have embraced the unwholesome over the wholesome.

I revere Gandhi for having taught that what glitters is not gold.

I remember the joy of walking mile after mile in open, playing football as if that was all there and enjoying thoroughly without a trace of care. Now all that has changed for kids in India. I feel sorry when I see girls and boys study from 6.00 AM to 9.00 PM and in rare spare time watch TV or visit malls. Even sports is just competitive and nothing else.

Adult life has changed too. 25 years ago, there used to be fresh air and a thrill in going out. Now it is dreadful. It is simply a wrong prescription of development doled by business men of west that has influenced to transform the wholesome to unwholesome -- without our knowing.

Somewhere it is said that Shiva mocks the city dwellers.

Om Namah Shivaya

Eastern Mind
02 August 2009, 06:32 AM
In all spheres of life, Indians en-masse have embraced the unwholesome over the wholesome.



This is sad, but not really discouraging, when we see the big picture. "One of life's greatest follies is to view the temporal as permanent"

At the very same time there is Hindu revivalism going on elsewhere. (Note our "youngsters" on here.)

Then the desire filled ones (material desire) get born into the west for a lifetime or two as desire helps determine one's next lifetime. We get all the food we want, all the sensual bombardment we need and more ... Here we gain a disdain for materialism, and ask :"What is this? It hasn't brought me lasting happiness, or peace."

Then we start asking , Who am I? Where did I come from? What's it all about? At that point Ganesha beckons, and we return. Maybe the builders of those temples to last 1000 years knew all this, and wanted them to be there for us when we return.

I just read this morning that "Dancing with Siva" is in it's final stages of being released in Tamil. So indeed there is progress.

Aum Namasivaya

atanu
01 October 2009, 11:17 PM
Food of Gods

My old mother is preparing to do Lakshmi Puja on Saturday. She has done this puja ever since I have remembrance, for safety, welfare, and prosperity of all. Though my father used to joke that he was far from prosperous. But, I recollect, that he was the jolliest person I have ever met. After his passing away, we miss his jolly self and indeed life has been somewhat dry and of less humour.

So, I was discussing with my younger brother on phone the modalities of the upcoming celebration of Shri Lakshmi Puja at our home. I live away but I am planning to be present during the Puja. A lot of food is prepared and offered to the Goddess. Chiefly, a gruel of rice and pulses that we call kichdi. The kichdi is accompanied by five types of vegetable preparations. As sweet dish for Goddess, a payasam, which is a boiled mixture of thickened milk and rice, is prepared. There are numerous other accompaniments. Anyone who has tasted this assortment of prasad will know the divininty in food. I cannot explain it. The food is almost as good as food that one gets in Jagannath temple of Puri, wherein, it is said that Vishnu dines.

But the preparation is very tedious. My mother herself does everything. The payasam preparation takes hours and hours.

I advised my brother to advice mother to go slow, considering her age. My brother told me that mother has come across a short cut method of preparing the kichdi, along with all five vegetable dishes, as one single dish and that she has agreed to adopt this easy way. He continued that mother would, however, not compromise on the payasam -- she would indeed stand near the oven stirring the milk for hours on slow flame till it attained the consistency which was liked by the Goddess.

I concurred. I informed him that I have come to know that Indra's staple food is condensed milk mixed with curd. I said "Just see the power: millions of electron volts and the sound of thunder."

My brother said "Yes, same with us. The thicker the consistency of milk, louder is the outburst." I got it late but issued a delayed guffaw.

Some may shrink from the atheistic nature of my posts in this thread. But what to do? That nirvikar God has parted vayu into five types, and one type only moves down. Vedas say that no one looks back to watch the work of this downward moving Vayu.

Om Namah Shivaya

saidevo
01 October 2009, 11:39 PM
namaste atanu.

Your description makes me feel like tasting that pAyasam and kichdi. Yes, my mother and maternal grandma too used to make elaborate prepartions on festive occasions and what a variety of bhakShaNam-s (snacks) they could prepare with an array of vyanjjana (condiments) using the recipes they had at their finger tips!

Preparation of the wheat halwa at home using the old-type wet stone grinders was a tedious task my mother used to undertake willingly every deepAvaLi. Raw wheat had to be soaked in water and ground on the stone, squeezing milk out of the pulp and then use that milk in the halwa preparation--used to take hours. When I was a boy I used to relish those halwa pieces and was angry with some elders when they wasted a piece or two served in the meal! My mA was also an expert in making soft mysore pak, a must for her deepAvaLi. She passed away seven years back and I miss all those dishes and snacks.

atanu
01 October 2009, 11:55 PM
namaste atanu.

Your description makes me feel like tasting that pAyasam and kichdi. Yes, my mother and maternal grandma too used to make elaborate prepartions on festive occasions and what a variety of bhakShaNam-s (snacks) they could prepare with an array of vyanjjana (condiments) using the recipes they had at their finger tips!

Preparation of the wheat halwa at home using the old-type wet stone grinders was a tedious task my mother used to undertake willingly every deepAvaLi. Raw wheat had to be soaked in water and ground on the stone, squeezing milk out of the pulp and then use that milk in the halwa preparation--used to take hours. When I was a boy I used to relish those halwa pieces and was angry with some elders when they wasted a piece or two served in the meal! My mA was also an expert in making soft mysore pak, a must for her deepAvaLi. She passed away seven years back and I miss all those dishes and snacks.

namaste saidevoji,

God willing that may be poossible some day?

I have learned one thing from mothers -- the devotion and love in their day in day out back breaking work. When I compare, I find myself so much inferior in karma yoga. Most women nowadays, IMO, are not aware of the love transforming into nutrition and flavour in the food cooked for Gods - which the whole world, incuding the family, is.

Regards
,
Om Namah Shivaya

kd gupta
14 October 2009, 09:18 AM
namaste atanu.

Your description makes me feel like tasting that pAyasam and kichdi. Yes, my mother and maternal grandma too used to make elaborate prepartions on festive occasions and what a variety of bhakShaNam-s (snacks) they could prepare with an array of vyanjjana (condiments) using the recipes they had at their finger tips!

Preparation of the wheat halwa at home using the old-type wet stone grinders was a tedious task my mother used to undertake willingly every deepAvaLi. Raw wheat had to be soaked in water and ground on the stone, squeezing milk out of the pulp and then use that milk in the halwa preparation--used to take hours. When I was a boy I used to relish those halwa pieces and was angry with some elders when they wasted a piece or two served in the meal! My mA was also an expert in making soft mysore pak, a must for her deepAvaLi. She passed away seven years back and I miss all those dishes and snacks.

Leave aside higher and lower , but mother's contribution is 8 times...
Bhoomiraapo’nalo vaayuh kham mano buddhireva cha;
Ahamkaara iteeyam me bhinnaa prakritirashtadhaa.
Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism—thus is My Nature divided
eightfold.
Apareyamitastwanyaam prakritim viddhi me paraam;
Jeevabhootaam mahaabaaho yayedam dhaaryate jagat.
This is the inferior Prakriti, Omighty-armed (Arjuna)! Know thou as different from it My
higher Prakriti (Nature), the very life-element by which this world is upheld.

atanu
24 September 2010, 12:20 PM
ECO LOGIC BY SUNITA NARAIN
Bitter truth: Biodiversity and the business of food


In this year of biodiversity,stop and think of how it touches our daily lives in fact our bodies and our self.We rarely make the connection between biodiversity of plants and animals,which we celebrate in the wild and our culture of food and lifestyles.But it is important to make the linkage as disappearance of biodiversity in the world affects our bodies.

Take honey.We never think about the golden product we buy off the shelf and consume from the jar with a label we trust,is linked to the biodiversity of bees in the world.We never consider how,as this biodiversity disappears and how Indian adapted bees (Apis cerana and Apis dorsata) are replaced by foreign,in this case European bees (Apis mellifera),the business of food changes.It changes because now,instead of the bee that is naturally found in our backyards,our forests and fields,we move towards bee cultivation.Then industry grows.It replaces the small informal bee producers,to build an organized business with reach across the country to outsource production and collection.The company that sells us the honey under its label,has little to do with its production.It buys from the organized business,bottles and sells.The business of food has changed to the business of profit.

The biodiversity of food is lost only one bee type now produces our honey and the biodiversity of business is lost.But nature has a way of getting back at us.As industry thrives in pumping up production by overworking the bees taking out immature honey so that bees have to make more and then feeding supplements and antibiotics for growth it finds that it is dealing with new diseases and new threats to its profits.This industrial agribusiness which our honey now belongs to needs more inputs of antibiotics to keep business going and bees healthy.

But this only means that our food our honey that we take with trust and belief in goodness and purity is full of contaminants of antibiotics as the Centre for Science and Environments laboratory found.All major brands including two big foreign brands had antibiotics far in excess of any standards in the world.This contaminant is bad for our bodies as it builds antibiotic resistance and even toxicity.The circle is complete: loss of biodiversity,loss of food culture and bad health and disease.

There are two ways ahead in this biodiversity-food-body connection.First,we need to build the science of food regulation,which is protective of our health.Current efforts at creating a food policeman in the shape of the Food Safety and Standards Authority have been disastrous.The Authority set up a few years ago,has been dead on entry.It does little to protect consumer interest in food,instead works to protect business interest over our food.This is even more deadly,when you consider how the business of food has changed and become more powerful and more global.Clearly,big business and weak regulators are bad for our bodies.

Second,we need to build the art of food again.This means understanding food as an outcome of living and lived biodiversity and culture.We cannot take all diversity out of our food and expect to have good health.It is clear we are losing the connection between what we eat and why and where and how it grows as we blindly and foolishly allow industry to take over the business of our kitchens.

Food is about the ultimate celebration of nature. Let us not lose it.


The author is director of Centre for
Science and Environment

NayaSurya
24 September 2010, 12:50 PM
So true, we go to a local farm here which produces organic corn, pumpkins and other foods. There is nothing like fresh corn which you picked with your own hands...and tenderly wash...then prepare for your family. Or fresh pumpkin spice cookies I make filled with peanuts.

So many have forgotten that to serve your beloved husband and beloved children is to serve The Beloved.

These days I am fasting to the Mahalaya Amavasya and I prepare breakfast lunch and dinner each day of this time despite no food for myself. Each of these meals is so close to my heart. I want Beloved to have this food and know it comes without any motivation but bhakti.

Over the years I have come to love this time of pure service most of all. Soon we make the trip to the farm for a corn row maze and then bring home beautiful pumpkins and Autumn corn. Such a wonderful time to celebrate the bounty of our world.<3

Onkara
24 September 2010, 02:07 PM
So true, we go to a local farm here which produces organic corn, pumpkins and other foods. There is nothing like fresh corn which you picked with your own hands...and tenderly wash...then prepare for your family. Or fresh pumpkin spice cookies I make filled with peanuts.

So many have forgotten that to serve your beloved husband and beloved children is to serve The Beloved.

These days I am fasting to the Mahalaya Amavasya and I prepare breakfast lunch and dinner each day of this time despite no food for myself. Each of these meals is so close to my heart. I want Beloved to have this food and know it comes without any motivation but bhakti.

Over the years I have come to love this time of pure service most of all. Soon we make the trip to the farm for a corn row maze and then bring home beautiful pumpkins and Autumn corn. Such a wonderful time to celebrate the bounty of our world.<3
Namaste NayaSuryaji
You make it sound so real I can almost smell the soil before you wash the vegetables.

It is true, it is a good time to celebrate the bounty of the world, I had not thought about it like that before. It is a reflection on change and a time for me to show gratitude for what I have, knowing that the change implies winter soon follows. This helps me to understand the place of Diwalli and Durga puja and why we might celebrate the change of autumn in association with Shakti, the eternal lover of The Beloved :)

Thanks for this :)

yajvan
24 September 2010, 07:45 PM
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast&#233; snip (et.al)


This helps me to understand the place of Diwalli and Durga puja and why we might celebrate the change of autumn in association with Shakti, the eternal lover of The Beloved :)

If I may let me offer the following for one's kind consideration.

śaradiya navarātri will occur next month ~ the 8th to the 16th ~ of October ; śaradiya navarātri is the 9 nights of Mother Divine as durgā&#185;
■ śara + diya
śara - is rooted (√) in śrī 'to rend' or 'destroy'
diya - deserving of gifts which can also be deya
We can also look at it this way form a neuter POV - diyā́nām p&#225;ti lord of gifts
■ navarātri = n&#225;van or 9 (९) + rātri = night.

From a jyotish POV these 9 days ( nights) , are alive with this impluse of destroying and removing mis-fortunes. The first 8 days are 5 + 3 = the 5 senses + 3 , the intellect, mind, and ego. Now we have 8 + 1 = 9.

On the 9th day we have those qualities of turīya that are enlivened i.e more accessable. This 9th day enlivens all the other 8 values of mind, intellect, the senses.

Now is there more? Yes, there is 9 + 1 and we end up on the 10th night... the 10th tithi. And what is that? vijaya daśami .
■ Vijaya = victory , conquest , triumph and also a name for durgā +
■ daśa+mi = the 10th ( implying tyhr 10 tithi ) + mi = to meter out, or observe.

What do you believe are the 'impluses' we find in creation at this time of vijaya daśami ? Where is this victory? IMHO it is the self ( ego, likes, dislikes, small-small thinking) that can be infused with SELF. Behaviors that stand in the way of the SELF can be destroyed.

http://www.allaboutindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/maaDurga-2.jpg

praṇām

words

√ durgā is durgatināśinī - the beauty of this name is found in durgati + nāśinī . Durgati = misfortune + naś = to drive away, extinguish. Hence durgā is She, durgatināśinī, that drives away ( remove, extringuish) mis-fortune

saidevo
24 September 2010, 10:39 PM
namaste everyone.

It makes sad reading--the cutthroat corporate manufacturing and distribution of honey, killing the svadeshi and cottage entrepreneurship. Brand names have invaded our culture and life to define what we eat, drink and do, and in ignorance we presume that they serve us immaculately.

• Sighting a honeycomb on some trees is no longer a common sight, even in our villages. In India, thanks to Gandhiji, there is a KhAdi Board of handloom clothes and svadeshi--home-country products, where honey gathered from homegrown beehives and honeycombs in the mountain trees, are sold. It's time to switch over from brand names to KhAdi for honey, after reading the Sunita's article.

• Recently, a medical doctor gave a talk in a Tamil TV channel about how the popular big and lush bananas known as 'Bangalore RastAli' or 'Moris plantains' were part of experiments of genetically modified products that the US companies push to India for consumption and testing. He said that the cattle do not touch the peels of these bananas and that no worm or insect dares to infest this variety. What the cattle and worms don't consume, we consume, he explained. In the same way, the gloss-looking apples with stickers on them are quoted with wax to let them last longer.

• He added that even some vegetables that look lush and large are probably genetically modified ones, and advised that we need to buy only vegetables and fruits that are prone to worm bites. From the day we saw this program, we are promptly taking his advice and buying only the common Indian varities of fruits and vegetables that are prone to worm bites.

• A few years back, BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre), India was experimenting with production and marketing of banana juice and banana powder as a beverage and health drink. Seems it is still at the experimental level, although here is a link for mechanical extraction of the juice: http://www.barc.ernet.in/technologies/banana/bananabr.html

• Most houses in the villages and even in Chennai in those days used to have space for kitchen gardening, where flowers for the pujas, coconut trees and vegetables were grown to supplement the needs of large joint families which had only one or two breadwinners. These days what we see all around is just a concrete jungle with artificially cultivated useless plants and trees.



These days I am fasting to the Mahalaya Amavasya and I prepare breakfast lunch and dinner each day of this time despite no food for myself. Each of these meals is so close to my heart. I want Beloved to have this food and know it comes without any motivation but bhakti.


NayaSurya, you remind me of the 'The Woman yogi who never eats' (chapter 46) of ParamahaMsa YogAnanda's Autobiography. With such loving heart and care you have for your family, you are indeed a tiny aMsha--share, of Goddess Mother Shakti.

Yajavan's explanation about NavarAtrI and Vijaya-dashami are enlightening.

upsydownyupsy mv ss
07 October 2010, 03:55 AM
Food proved me a fool! Yup! My diet is unhealthy and stupid, now making slight changes, slowly and steadily. 90% of our guna output is controlled by food. I'm not saying this from scriptural view, but my own experience. When I eat Tamo-Rajasik food, I act like a monkey :naughty::crazy:. When I eat Tamasic food, I sleep and sleep:sleeping::ill:. When I eat Rajasic food, I'm a well aaa.... this? ->:banghead:. Lol! When I eat Sattvic food, I'm the one I wanna be.


In yajvan sir's post I saw some saying 16th october! Funny thing is thats my birthday! Lol! I don't celebrate my birthday and don't like to, but this co-incidence appears funny to me.