Carrots

[Guest guest]

> Dear Maharaja

>

> Please accept my humble obiesances

> All glories to Srila Prabhupada

>

> I am working on some course material for the congregation and in dealing

> with prasadam standards, the following came up.

>

> NM followers avoid carrots and red lentils as well as onions and garlic,

> citing a story from the Vedic Puranas as the reason. The story describes

> that a great sage was going to conduct a traditional cow-sacrifice in

> which a cow was to be ritually killed, offered in a sacrificial fire and

> emerge from the fire with a new body. The cow was killed in the afternoon

> and was due to receive a new body through the sacrificial fire that

> evening. During the interim, the sage's pregnant wife, driven by a sudden,

> intense hunger, stole some of the cow's body and ate the flesh. She buried

> the left over bone, blood and skin. That evening when the cow emerged from

> the fire in a new body, the body was incomplete. The sage was angry and

> released a powerful curse that turned the bones into carrots, the blood

> into red lentils and the skin into garlic and onions.

>

> The NM disciple who told me this said that NM learned this standard off

> Kesva Maharaja who learned it off Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Maharaja, and

> that it is followed by most Gaudiya Vaisnavas.

>

> Do you have any experience in this regard? I could hardly imagine that if

> it is widely followed by other GVs that it would not have come up before

> the rise of NM.

>

> I am not attempting to prove/disprove or validate their claim, I am merely

> interested in putting it into perspective.

>

> Ys bvd

 

Srila Prabhupada said we shouldn't take onion, garlic and red lentils. Even

normal lentils are not considered good enough to offer for some reason

although we can eat them. Red lentils are prohibited. As far as carrots

are concerned Srila Prabhupada didn't forbid us from taking carrots. There

is some confusion whether the carrots we know as carrots are really the

carrots referred to in vedic sastra. Some historians say that tomatos,

round potatos and carrots were only brought to India by Europians. maybe

there is another vegetable they are referring to as carrots. In any case in

ISKCON Srila Prabhupada authorized carrots, but forbade the others.

 

If you research more on onion and garlic in the vedas I would like to have

the results since so many congregational members don't observe this

restriction I would like to prove it to them according to sastra, sadhu and

guru why onion and garlic should be avoided as a food.

 

They may have medicinal qualities but as a food they are to be avoided.

 

Your servant,

 

Jayapataka Swami