DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0140
128 Vaishnavism. The Ramanuja Sect.
are firm believers in the evil influence of the human eye
(drishti-dosha). The preparation of food is with high-caste
natives an affair of equal secrecy. We Europeans can scarcely
understand the extent to which culinary operations may
be associated with religion. The kitchen in every Indian
household is a kind of sanctuary or holy ground; almost
as hallowed as the room dedicated to the family gods. No
unprivileged person must dare to intrude within this sacred
enclosure. The mere glance of a man of inferior caste makes
the greatest delicacies uneatable, and if such a glance hap-
pens to fall on the family supplies during the cooking opera-
tions, when the ceremonial purity of the water used1 is a
matter of almost life or death to every member of the
household, the whole repast has to be thrown away as if
poisoned. The family is for that day dinnerless. Food
thus contaminated would, if eaten, communicate a taint to
the souls as well as bodies of the eaters — a taint which
could only be removed by long and painful expiation. In
travelling over every part of India, and diligently striving
to note the habits of the natives in every circumstance of
their daily life, I never once saw a single Hindu, except of
the lowest caste, either preparing or eating cooked food of
any kind. The Ramanujas carry these ideas to an extra-
vagant extreme. They carefully lock the doors of their
kitchens and protect their culinary and prandial operations
from the gaze of even high-caste Brahmans of tribes and
sects different from their own.
Each of the present chiefs (ac'aryas) of the two Rama-
nuja sects lays claim to be the true descendant of the
founder himself in regular, unbroken succession. The Vada-
1 Caste-rules are now an essential part of religion, but there is reason
to believe that they were once merely matters of social convenience.
Many of them probably originated in the need of sanitary precautions.
Nothing is so necessary for the preservation of health in India as atten-
tion to the purity of water.
are firm believers in the evil influence of the human eye
(drishti-dosha). The preparation of food is with high-caste
natives an affair of equal secrecy. We Europeans can scarcely
understand the extent to which culinary operations may
be associated with religion. The kitchen in every Indian
household is a kind of sanctuary or holy ground; almost
as hallowed as the room dedicated to the family gods. No
unprivileged person must dare to intrude within this sacred
enclosure. The mere glance of a man of inferior caste makes
the greatest delicacies uneatable, and if such a glance hap-
pens to fall on the family supplies during the cooking opera-
tions, when the ceremonial purity of the water used1 is a
matter of almost life or death to every member of the
household, the whole repast has to be thrown away as if
poisoned. The family is for that day dinnerless. Food
thus contaminated would, if eaten, communicate a taint to
the souls as well as bodies of the eaters — a taint which
could only be removed by long and painful expiation. In
travelling over every part of India, and diligently striving
to note the habits of the natives in every circumstance of
their daily life, I never once saw a single Hindu, except of
the lowest caste, either preparing or eating cooked food of
any kind. The Ramanujas carry these ideas to an extra-
vagant extreme. They carefully lock the doors of their
kitchens and protect their culinary and prandial operations
from the gaze of even high-caste Brahmans of tribes and
sects different from their own.
Each of the present chiefs (ac'aryas) of the two Rama-
nuja sects lays claim to be the true descendant of the
founder himself in regular, unbroken succession. The Vada-
1 Caste-rules are now an essential part of religion, but there is reason
to believe that they were once merely matters of social convenience.
Many of them probably originated in the need of sanitary precautions.
Nothing is so necessary for the preservation of health in India as atten-
tion to the purity of water.