--- 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 __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SriRangaSri/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SriRangaSri/join (Yahoo! 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