Divine delights

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: Vishnu, on the other hand, is a royal and so is given pakka or cooked food. Devi is not offered milk for she gives it to the devotee as She is a mother. This idea is further seen in the form of go mata and gouri. Devi is offered blood. Devi is also shown as cutting a buffalo. This is to show that every time one eats, someone dies. Devi is a horrible truth that we don’t say. We are in a state of cultural delusion but the reality is we destroy in order to consume.”

Food is aligned to the personality of the god it is offered to. Food communicates messages. There is a implicit rahasya involved in it, says Pattanaik. “To make rice, one needs paddy which requires a field. Nature does not offer fields to grow rice. To make a field, forests have to be cut, which is destruction of animals and plants; in short the ecosystem. So, implicit in the idea of eating rice is the symbolism of violence. Nature makes milk not for us to drink but for the calf and yet we take if for our consumption. Even in this act, there is violence.”

Food and faith

At a complex level, when food is offered to the gods what is implied is that it is procured through effort and on the simplistic level, it implies that we give food that the deity likes and appreciates as It is our guest. This form of worship is specific to Hinduism, informs Pattanaik. In Christianity, bread and wine represent the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. When a devotee takes bread, what he is doing is wash away the impurities of his flesh through pure flesh in the form of bread. There used to be sacrifices in Judaism, says Pattanaik. Cain and

Abel offered grain and goat to god but it is an old ritual not in practice anymore. In Islam, food is a ritual for social bonding.

So food is eaten from one plate to indicate that all are equal and none is superior or inferior to the other. A thought is communicated. Thus, in Hinduism, food is symbolic; in Christianity, it is mystical and in Islam, it has social elements.