importance of food in vedanta

[Guest guest]

namaste.

 

The recent series of articles on our list on food-intake are quite

interesting. It is too bad we lost one member (Tim Gerchmez) in the

process of this discussion. Although there is some merit in Tim's

point that food is an inconsequential item in vedanta (only feeding

the body, which is not the Atman), upanishadic evidence points

otherwise. If Tim is reading this, I would like to request him to

re-consider his decision of withdrawing from the List. His posts

are certainly direct and thought-provoking. I miss them.

 

I like to put forward, in the following paragraphs, the importance

of food as discussed in the various upanishads. People have to eat to

sustain the body, and sustenance of the body is important because body

is the vehicle which is required for Realization. Without the body,

the mind and the intellect have no base. Realization is the recognition

by the intellect that it is Brahman (not only intellectual recognition

but experiential recognition). Such Realization would not take place

without the gross body and the gross body (and the subtle and the

causal body) is the food we eat. The upanishads give a huge importance

to the food and called annam as devatA. In the following paragraphs,

I will try to give upanishadic references to discussions of food.

 

In ChAndogya upanishad (C.u.), the vital breath (prANa) is shown to be

the most superior of all the senses (C.u. 5.1). This prANa depends on

food. Food is assimilated into the body and it nourishes prANa and

sustains its constant functioning which is the meaning of life. Without

prANa, existence of life (for humans and other forms of life) ceases.

Without food, prANa (vital breath) withers. Both mental and physical

activities of a human weaken without food.

 

There are two parables in the C.u. which elucidate the importance of

food. In C.u. 1.10 is the parable of the sage UshhasTi cAkarAyaNa and

his wife Atiki. They could not get any food for some days as the crops

in the region were destroyed by thunderstorms. They wandered for food

for several days and finally came to an elephant keeper and begged food

of him. The elephant keeper, who was eating black pulses of inferior

quality, replied "There are no more pulses apart from these which are near

me". Under the pangs of hunger, UshhasTa cAkarAyaNa disregarded the

consideration that he should not eat from these pulses which have been

polluted by another person already eating them, and said "Give me these.".

However UshhasTi refused the water offered by the elephant keeper. When

the elephant keeper questioned "Are these pulses also not polluted like

this water?", UshhasTi cAkarAyaNa replied that they were indeed so,

but that he could not help taking them (the pulses) because it was

necessary for him to save his life under the situation. He can surely

get unpolluted drinking water later. Shri Shankara, commenting on this,

says that the purpose of this section of the upanishad is that when a

person, possessed of learning and capable of doing good to himself and

others, does even such a thing as eating polluted food, he is not touched

by sin. If someone refuses to eat such food under the pretense of being

a man of knowledge, he verily goes to hell.

 

UshhasTi cAkarAyaNa saved his life by eating the polluted black pulses

offered to him by the elephant driver. The next section of the C.u.

describes how UshhasTa cAkarAyaNa attended a sacrificial session

organized by a king and he proposed that prANa or vital breath is to

be invoked as a deity. UshhasTi later proposes that vital breath is

food and all people live by taking food (annam iti hovAca, sarvANi ha

vA imAni bhutAni annam eva pratiharamANAni jIvanti... "Food" said he

"verily, indeed, all beings here live, when they partake of food. This

is the divinity that belongs to the PratihAra, ..." C.u. 1.11.9)

 

The other parable in C.u. that deals and confirms the importance of

food not only for living but also for learning is the one involving

Svetaketu and his father UddAlaka AruNi. Svetaketu returns home after

spending twenty four years at the place of his teacher, but without

acquiring the requisite humility which is a sign of spiritual

realization. Observing the impudence of his son Svetaketu, AruNi

instructs Svetaketu to keep fast for fifteen days and to live on

water alone. AruNi says that life survives on water and Svetaketu

would not die by not taking food for fifteen days.

 

So the son fasted as the father instructed and came to the father

at the end of the fifteen day period. The father asked him to chant

the various vedas, which the son could not do as he is feeble (caused

by the fifteen-day fasting). When the son expressed his inability to

recite the hymns, the father said "Just as the fire which is fed with

ample fuel and has consumed most of this fuel and a little fire is

left in it like a fire-fly, it does not have much burning power;

similarly fifteen parts of your vital strength are exhausted without

food and only one part is left. So you have become feeble without

food and you cannot recollect the vedic hymns. You take food and

you will soon regain the power to understand and recite vedas.".

After this, Svetaketu took food. His energies and senses have revived

and he found he can recollect the vedic hymns he learnt before. This

parable substantiates the value of food for life.

 

The mind also depends on food. As was shown in my last postings

(some thoughts on the mind; along with references), mind is the food

we take, the subtlest of the food going into the mind, the crudest

part (of food) becoming excretion, and the intermediate part forms

flesh of the body.

 

C.u. (C.u. 6.8.4) even regards food as the seed of the body. Just as

a tree springs from a seed, so the body grows from food. Although we

know that food is directly not seed of the body, we can find the causal

relation. The seed of the body is the sperm which flow in the semen.

Semen (and sperm) are generated from the food which the man eats and

thus food is the seed of the body.

 

The most famous reference in upanishads to importance of food is the

Bhr^guvallI of the TaittirIya upanishad (T.u.). Bhr^gu, the son of

VaruNa, was instructed by his father to observe penance and to discover

reality for himself. At a stage of his penance he came to realize that

food is the ultimate reality (annam brahmeti vyajAnAt). This realization

was not final, but is at least an approximation to the reality. Bhr^gu

realized that man is composed of the essence of food. Bhr^gu came to

realize that people are born of food, and they live by food and into

food they enter after departing (annAdhyeva khalv imAni bhutAni jAyante,

annena jAtAni jIvanti, annam prayanty abhisaMvishanti. T.u. 3.2.1.

Here I am interpreting annam as food; a more generalized interpretation

can be annam is all gross matter). Food is the ultimate support of man,

hence is to be adored as the ultimate reality (T.u. 2.2). T.u. raises

food to the status of the highest and most sanctified reality. It

proceeds on with the most sacred injunctions regarding food. In a

beautiful passage, it exhorts us not to disregard food, as it sustains

our life.

 

annam na nindyAt, tad vratam, prANo vA annam, sharIram annAdam, prAne

sharIram pratisThitam, sharIre prAnah pratisThitah, tad etad annam anne

pratisThitam, sa ya etad annam anne pratisThitam veda pratisThati,

annavAn annAdo bhavati, mahAn bhavati, prajayA pashubhir brahma-varcasena

mahAn kIrtyA

 

Do not speak ill of food. That shall be the rule. Life, verily, is food.

The body is the eater of food. In life is the body established; life is

established in the body. So is food established in food. He who knows

that food is established in food, becomes established. He becomes an eater

of food, possessing food. He becomes great in offspring and cattle and

in the splendour of sacred wisdom; great in fame.

 

It is on the basis of such scriptural injunctions that people (knowers

of the upanishads) regard food with divine sanctity and designate food

as anna-devatA. Food cannot be disregarded or wasted. Upanishadic sages

accepted food as the gift of God.

 

The essay is already too long and I will finish it at this stage. Some

comments on Shri Madhava Turumella's defense of vegetarianism will follow

in a latter post.

 

Regards

Gummuluru Murthy

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Yadaa sarve pramucyante kaamaa ye'sya hr^di shritaah

atha martyo'mr^to bhavatyatra brahma samashnute Katha Upanishhad II.3.14

 

When all the desires that dwell in the heart fall away, then the mortal

becomes immortal, and attains Brahman even here.

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