The Eternal Food: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and BuddhistsR. S. Khare The interdisciplinary approaches presented here investigate food in India and Sri Lanka for its wide ranging cultural meaning and uses. The authors examine food in religious and literary contexts, where saints, ritualists, poets, and the divine often provide grounds for a practically inexhaustible hermeneutics. The Eternal Food focuses on reflexive cultural expressions and personal experiences that food elicits in the region. Concerned with food as an "essence" and as an essential experience, the authors give special attention to Hindu saints for whom food, firmly grounded in moral ideals and practice, represents a cosmic divine principle at one level, and a most immediate and intimate material reality at another. In the cultural diversity of India, the authors work with several conceptual models and meanings of food. They demonstrate how it reflects common social understandings about social caste, the cure and prevention of ailments, its ability to alter moods and motivations, or affect innate personal dispositions, personal spiritual pursuits and attainments. In its sweep and depth, food presents a powerful cultural lens for seeing how practical, ritual, and spiritual spheres of life conjoin. |
Contents
An Aspect of Hindu Gastrosemantics | 27 |
The Anomalous Status of Dog | 53 |
Evolution of Food Metaphor | 95 |
Ritual Inversion | 117 |
Gods Washings as Food | 147 |
Food Essence and the Essence of Experience | 179 |
Cultural Models Meanings | 201 |
Toward an Anthology of Food Images | 221 |
Glossary | 251 |
Contributors | 261 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
A. K. Ramanujan abhanga aesthetic Annakūṭa Anthropology ascetic austerities Ayurvedic become Bhakti body Brahman Braj Buddhist Caṇḍāla caste context cooked cosmic cultural deity Delhi devotees dharma discourses dish distinct divine Dog-Cooker Edited Ekanatha essence experience feast feeding festivals flavor food offerings Food Systems gastrosemantics god's gods Govardhan Govardhan hill hill Hindu Hindu food Hindu world holy person human icon Indra jāti Jñānadeva karma king Krishna leftovers M. S. A. Rao Mahabharata Manu Marathi Marriott meal meanings meat metaphor metonymy milk moral Murukan myth Namadeva one's otherworldly outcaste Palani pañcămirtam pilgrimage pilgrims practice prāṇa prasad prasāda R. S. Khare rasa rice ritual sage saint samsara Sanskrit sants sect sharing Sinhalese Siva social Society South Asia South Asian South India spiritual Śrauta studies substance Sunaḥsepa Svapaca sweet symbolic Tamil tantric temple texts tion tradition University Press Upanisad Vasistha Vedic Visvamitra Vithoba vols worldly worship yogi