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--- In tiruvenkatam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
sadagopaniyengar@... wrote:
> 
> To Eat or Not to Eat


                    ******************

Dear Sri Sadagopan Iyengar,

A very informative piece indeed on
"bhagavath-prasAdam". Many thanks for the relevant
"pramAnam" quoted from various scriptural sources.

While reading your interesting posting, the following
thoughts randomly occured to me. I hope you will not
mind if I share them with you as well as the Group
members:

(1) The practice of offering food unto God and thereby
consecrating it before consumption is not something
unique to SriVaishnavas. It is a practice almost
universal in all major religions.

I have lived and worked in the Muslim world of the
Arab World for well over a decade now. Devout Muslims
will never eat food unless it is first offered unto
the ALmighty. I have witnessed my Muslim colleagues, 
happening to be travelling with me on work out of
Kuwait to Europe or the Far East, wholly abjuring from
all meat-food (their staple diet) during the entire
trip simply because it is not "halaal" ie. meat that
has not been offfered as sacrament unto God before
being cooked as dish. (I am a vegetarian and  my
Muslim colleague and I have often gone for days during
our tour of Taiwan and Shanghai without a proper meal:
he because he could not find "halaal" meat and I
because I could not find a 100% vegetarian
restaurant!... But that's another story!) 

Similarly, good Christian families, gathered together
at a meal-table, never begin their meal without first
saying "Grace" -- a short prayer to the Almighty in
gratitude for the food served before them and
acknowledging that it is indeed His blessing.

Jews also are very particular about "kosher", again to
do with a sort of consecration of food before
consumption.

(2) In the Ramayana, there is the famous episode of
Sabari, the old mendicant lady who lived alone in the
forests of Dandakaranya waiting patiently for years
for Lord Rama to step over her humble doorsteps. The
story goes that Sabari used to daily prepare a simple
meal made of forest fruit, herb and shoots every day
and then wait to see if Rama came by. The story also
goes that Sabari used to nibble bits of the meal just
to make sure it was of good quality and fit for the
royal taste of the Prince of Ayodhya.

  The Ramayana tells us that when Rama did eventually
arrive at old Sabari's cottage in the forest, he
gladly feasted upon the old lady's special meal. That
special "pre-tasted meal", from our narrow perspective
of what is "yecchil" and what is "shuddham", would
definitely qualify as rather "unclean food". The
question is: Was Sabari's meal really unclean? Was it
"ecchil"? And if so what did the Almighty, in his
avatara as Rama, see in it that delectated Him so
much?

I think the Sabari story affirms the fundamental
SriVaishnava belief that "bhAgavatha prasAda" --
left-over food from the plate of a true devotee of God
--- is surely charged with some sort of sacredness no
less than "bhagavath-prasAda" itself.

(3) "bhagavath-prasAdam" means not only Food
consecrated through offering to God. In the
SriVaishnava belief-system, everything that remains as
"left-over" after symbolically and sincerely offered
unto God is "bhagavath-prasAdam" and hence eminently
fit for human use and consumption. Even clothes,
ornaments and other personal effects that one wears or
otherwise uses should really have first been already
offered unto God. This belief is what is 
unequivocally indicated in the 9th stanza of
Peria-AzhwAr's famous "Tiru-pallAndu":

uduththuk kaLaindha nin peedhaka aadai uduththuk*
kalaththathuNdu*
thoduththa thuzhaaymalar soodik kaLaindhana* soodum
iththoNdar_kaLOm*
viduththa thisaikkarumam thiruththith* thiruvONath
thiruvizhavil*
paduththa pain^n^aakaNaip paLLikoNdaanukkup* pallaaNdu
kooRuthumE.       9.

(4) Food ("annam") in itself is a "devata" (a lesser
god) in the Vedic pantheon. There is the famous "anna
sUktam" -- hymn in praise of Food -- which extols Food
as the source of all Energy. In the broadest and most
platonic of the Vedic sense of the term, Food is
itself a cosmic Principle ("tattva") representing not
only edibles fit for human consumption. "annam" is in
fact anything and everything that provides vitality or
life-energy ("prANa") to every being or thing in the
cosmos. 

When we eat, we are actually, in a very special way,
in deep communion with God, the Supreme One who is the
seat of all "prANa", who is the fountainhead of all
Energy that enlivens and locomotes all Creation. Food
that has been symbolically offered to the ALmighty
before being consumed by us, stands therefore
"consecrated": it is charged with divine potentiality;
it stands transmuted at once into high-energy Food
("prANa").

Thanks and regards,
dAsan,
Sudarshan 




                
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