Dialogue with Christians to be revised Part Seventeen

Problem with Prasad

Using Indian (Hindu) terms, symbols and concepts in exercising our bhakti in the Lord is more complicated when considering various aspects related to those terms—like culture, religious and social.  Particularly when Sanskrit words are used we should be very careful when we give any kind of theological interpretation without knowing the original meaning and the context.  In general many Sanskrit words (like Yoga, Sankhya etc.) gained new meaning transcending from its original meaning.  Prasad is one such term.

Prasad means grace.  But in Hinduism it gained a new meaning for the ‘material’ which is received back from the deity as its grace.¹ In general when Hindus use it, they never think that they are using it as a symbol for the grace of god but receiving literally the transmitted blessing of that particular deity.² This concept is stretched even to several items which a pilgrim brings back after visiting a pilgrim center, temple or abode of her guru etc.

For example most of the South Indians visiting Varanasi will bring a black thread known as ‘Kasik kayiru’ (Tamil).  This they will buy from the shop. But when they distribute it to their relatives, friends and neighbor, then it become prasad.  There is a humor side also in this.  Tiruppathi is famous for its laddu. Even the atheist would like to eat it.  But there is a ration for this at Tiruppathi.  Each devotee will get only one laddu.  But they have to distribute this prasad to so many.  There are many local shops come to their help.  So pilgrims will buy lots of these local laddus from the sweet shops.  But they will keep the ‘temple’ prasad for their immediate family and distribute the ‘shop prasad’ to others.  If their relatives, friends and neighbors receive a full laddu, then they know that that laddu is from the shop and not from the temple. But it doesn’t matter for them, as it came from Tirupathi, then it is prasad to them.

One criticism that could be leveled against us for using this term Prasad for celebrating ‘communion’ service is that we are using it merely as a symbol as if it not understanding transmitted grace of god as understood in the Hindu context.  In one way this criticism is correct.  But it comes out because of misunderstanding the very act of conducting Maha–Prasad by us and the word.  This becomes more complicated when Roman Catholics use the same word for Eucharist because of their theology of ‘transubstantiation’ where the ‘materials’ (wafer and wine) used in Communion literally become the very body and blood of the Lord.  But most of the Hindu bhaktas, who know this issue, try to explain that they use it symbolically remembering what the Lord has done to differentiate the Catholic concept of transubstantiation.

But I think this is easily said than understood considering various theology behind ‘communion’ service in Christianity. As one pointed out, ‘one of the questions from a Christian theology standpoint is, what happens with communion? Does the physical material bring Christ’s presence and blessing, even one important for salvation (more Roman Catholic)? Is the material symbolic but the action brings the “spiritual” presence of Christ that nourishes the believers (Reformed)? Or is everything (material and action) symbolic – not conveying Christ’s presence or blessing in any special way but reminding us of his death and resurrection and his constant presence and blessing (more Evangelical)? I am not saying the Maha Prasad of Hindu bhaktas does or has to fit into any of these categories, but I bring them up as examples of what “symbolic” could mean in communion.’³

My understanding as a Hindu bhakta of the Lord is this: Our worship of the Lord is not symbolic.  What the Lord has done historically through his sacrifice is not symbolic.  The grace that we receive is not symbolic.  We use the local materials ‘remembering’ the grace of God through the sacrificial act of the Lord.  At the same time in our celebration of ‘Maha–Prasad’ we never discriminate between those who received deeksha (baptism) and those who not.  We teach the bhaktas of the Lord that when we receive ‘Maha–Prasad’ we remember the ‘saving grace of god’ and when we allow others to receive it remains as the ‘common grace of god’ as the word ‘prasad’ means grace.  So our celebration of ‘Maha–Prasad’ as Hindu bhaktas won’t neatly fit into any of the Christian theological categories.⁴

Though the ‘materials’ which we use in Maha Prasad might remain symbolic, still the ritual act which we perform or known as ‘performative act’ might lead us to think that when any ritual is performed with the right formula, with the right mantra, or with the right materials it will automatically transform the power or grace of god. This is the common notion in Hindu rituals.  That is why in Vedic ritual more than the deities, the priests are very important.  Because a yajna correctly performed by them will automatically bring its result even making the deities to confer their blessing.⁵ But we never super impose such a view on Maha–Prasad.  At the same time we think that god responds to our actions done in faith as part of our bhakti theology.

Here the dilemma for us is to not go to one extreme of treating everything as symbolic or the rituals as mechanic.  According to my understanding God never ignores the reality of material needs in our life. 

One time one Australian missionary in a conference held back in late 1990s told that the baptism and communion is symbolic.  In his Indian group, they also insisted to not even conduct deeksha (baptism) or Maha–Prasad (communion) for the bhaktas in their fellowships.  According to them all these are mere symbolic rituals and we need not use them as we integrate its meaning in spirit—viz., they are a spiritual reality, therefore there is no need for physical expression. Then I asked him whether the physical death of the Lord on the Cross is real or symbolic?  Is our salvation (mukti) real or symbolic?

I think the dry intellectual understanding of spirituality in the west among some evangelicals and the needs of symbols and performative acts with materials in India is the main issue here.  If I love someone how to show it without a physical act using materials?  I love my mother and want to serve her. But this I have to do by practically looking after her using materials.  Note what Bailey says about it:

…there is no ‘spiritual gospel’ that can be endorsed in isolation from the reality of the physical world that God created, called ‘good’ and into which he placed human beings.  This combination of the spiritual and the physical and its relationship to God is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus.  For example, the Lord’s Prayer includes a request for the gift of bread. {The Parable of the Rich Fool. Lk. 12: 13-21}—[Bailey, 2008, p. 298]

As I said is our act of worship real or symbolic?  For me the materials that we use are immaterial for us.  I will go even to the extent of saying that they are not even symbolic but mere materials which we can use and throw. But the acts that we do are not symbolic.  Otherwise the acts of god in history will become symbolic as several liberals claim. 

Integrating the physical act within and make it mere spiritual or symbolic is also part of our Indian tradition. In fact the entire Aranyaka literature of Veda demonstrates it.  There all the sacrificial acts done by the Brahmin priests in any yajna (Vedic sacrifice) is internalized and done in the mind without actually using the physical material. There are similar stories in bhakti tradition on this subject.  One Pusal Nayanar belongs to Kanchipuram (near Chennai in Tamilnadu) constructed a temple for Siva in his mind and invited the Lord to come and dwell in that temple in a particular day. At the same time the king Kadavar Koman physically constructs a grand stone temple for Siva and fix the same date for the ‘kumbabishekam’ (inauguration with ritual). But Siva appearing in the dream of the king advised him to change the dates as he is not available on that day as he has to go dwell in the temple constructed by his simple devotee in his mind on the same day. [Manikkanar, 2000, songs 4171 to 4185]. But this never stopped common people from doing various kinds of rituals using materials.  New temples are constructed even today.

So apart from using Indian or Sanskrit terms these theological reflections regarding rituals shows the complexity of the theology of Prasad.  Here I am not prescribing an easy answer.  However a Hindu bhakta because of her background easily understands the meaning behind ‘Maha Prasad’ than thinking all the complication in theology.

The first thing that we need to remember is that any materials that are offered to any deity is ‘naivedyam’ (Sanksritized Tamil) or ‘nivedana’.  When it is received back by the devotee then it becomes “uchista(m)”  which could literarily translate as ‘leftover food’; what we call in Tamil yetchil (spittle), though the word ‘uchista(m)’ is not used for prasad but only to the leftover food of the human.  In bhakti tradition receiving and eating the ‘yetchil’ of a deity is considered as the highest blessing as it gives personal contact with the deity as explained by Cort, ‘…Many scholars have argued that the offering of food to a Hindu deity is puja and its transformation into prasad by being tasted by the deity is intimately related to superior-subordinate relations in the purity-based caste hierarchy….’⁶ Whereas ‘to charge someone with having eaten food defiled by another’s saliva, is indeed a serious insult’⁷

Till the recent past, in several Hindu houses (particularly among the so called high caste, and more specifically [Tamil] Brahmin houses) when the husband is first fed, he should deliberately leave some food for his wife to consume from the same plate in which the wife will take her food. This I have witnessed personally on several occasion.  Now this practice is almost disappeared except on the day of wedding, where immediately after the marriage when the couple are fed, their leaves are exchanged for both of them to eat the ‘yetchil’ of each other.  It is like when the priest asks the husband to kiss his wife after wedding in western countries.  (A small digression here: Why the feminist failed to note that why the wife was not asked to kiss the husband and why it is always the husband asked to do it first?). A devoted wife will consider the leftover food as the ‘prasad’ of her husband and a devotee do the same.

When I visited Yamunotri back in 1992, I cooked some potato along with rice and dhal in the hot spring tying them all in a towel and drowning it in the hot spring.  When I took and began to eat, some pilgrims who came there stretched their hand to me. When I said that ‘it is leftover food’ (jutta in Hindi), one of the elderly person responded by saying, ‘that is why we want it. It is your prasad which we want to receive’.  So in the course of history this act of ‘grace’ transmitted over any material which is offered and received back to the deity is called prasad.

So practically prasad is the “leftover food” from the deity which is fed by the priest (in the temple)⁸ or a devotee (at home) and not merely a thing offered to it.  Of course several things  ‘kumkum, vibhuti (ash), laddu, batasa (hardened sugar), flowers and water etc.’ which a devotee brings back from a temple or pilgrim center is also called prasad.  These days such prasad is sent to the patron by the priest through post and courier.  Even the arati, after taken into a temple before the deity and brought back for the devotees, is also considered as prasad:

While arati is being performed, the arati plate is waved over the image of the deity by the officiating priest.  In doing so, the plate itself is said to acquire the radiance and the power of the deity.  The priest then takes the plate around to all those present as prasada.(p. 3)  The devotees cup their downturned hands over the flame and then raise their palms to their forehead.  By doing this, it is believed that the purificatory  blessing passed from the deity’s image to the flame, has now been passed to the devotee. ⁹

While celebrating ‘Maha Prasad’ as communion service we never ‘offer or feed’ anything to the Lord which we later receive as his ‘leftover’ food.  When we use certain native words and symbols we know that there are various shades of meaning behind it.  That is why I am careful when I use and explain them.  I am not sure in the churches the materials used in the communion service, particularly among the Protestants used as mere symbols or actually using any material to remember the sacrifice of the Lord.   According to my understanding the very act of celebrating Maha Prasad is not symbolic viz., our worship is not symbolic but we are ‘remembering’ and also celebrating in a fellowship and we never can perform it for oneself, though I heard that some Catholic priests, particularly monks (priest) used to do that while performing it for some patterns who requested to do that for them.  Regarding other things like ‘kumkum, vibhuti’ etc. which are used by the Hindus as the prasad of a deity, they actually are not fed to the deity but ‘offered’.  At the same time it should be noted that any substance used to perform ‘abisheka¹⁰ (pouring or applying) to any deity is used as prasad.  But in few cases like a priest distributing ‘kumkum or vibhuti’ in a temple anything offered or fed to the deity is considered as ‘prasad’.  So one should know all these kinds of various shades of meaning and acts before commenting upon it when used by us in our need to celebrate our bhakti in the Lord using our own native terms and symbols.   For us Maha Prasad is the celebration of ‘table fellowship’ with other bhaktas ‘remembering’ his act of sacrifice in which we use ‘local materials’ like banana, milk, coconut, roti, dhal, rice, puffed rice, black tea, etc.  In no Hindu temple they will offer ‘black tea’ even as an offering to the deity.  Of course I have witness my aunt (my father’s younger sister) offering the coffee to the family deity before she takes it in the morning, even before taking bath!!!  Similarly around 11.00 am she will keep a glass of water before the deity.  Hindus are free to use any kind of bhakti expression without minding or worrying about the theology behind it.  And one who questions the use of local terms and symbols for our bhakti should keep all these points in mind.  In Hinduism prasad which was an adjective become a noun transmitting the grace of the deity through the material used to offer to it.  But in our bhakti to celebrate the grace of God through the sacrifice of the Lord by using the term Maha–Prasad in which we use local materials we remember that grace.  We never offer any materials to the Lord or feed god to receive it back as if it transmit his grace through them. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss all the details about ritual.  Several scholars have written about it¹¹  But we should remember that as every action done by us has a meaning, there is a meaning and purpose behind every ritual.¹²  So try to explain any ritual as ‘proactive’ or ‘symbolic’ or ‘spiritual’ etc., many not clearly represent ritual done by a particular individual or group in a given context.  It is worth note that, ‘The English word “ritual” covers a wide range of human behaviours from elaborate offerings to simple gestures, whereas Sanskrit analogues have more specific reference….’[Flood, 2003, p.6]

For example the word ‘samskar’ is translated as ‘sacrament’, still samskar is different from sacrament in the sense in which it is used in Christian traditions which is more ‘liturgical act’ than spontaneous ceremonies.¹³  In Hinduism, though it is claimed that temple rituals are based on ‘Agamas’ still all the minute details of agamic rules and regulations are not followed in most of them were sometime left out.  Noting this Fuller says, ‘           In brief, the key points are that neither the Agamas nor the manuals contain explicit, detailed instructions about how to perform all the rituals in every particular temple, as they are widely thought to do.  The length and complexity of the instructions—for example, about preparatory rituals—means that any attempt to conform fully to all of them would often impose completely impractical demands on the priests’ time and patience as well….’[Fuller, 2003 p.82] This being the case any ritual performed as per the tradition still there are lots of flexibility and novelty to include new elements.  During Durga puja, several relics includes modern expression of (demon) Mahishashana holding modern weapons like guns etc.  As change and continuity is the mark of Hinduism, while tradition is preserved in some basic details new things are always added.  But this is not the case with the ‘communion service’ performed in most of the main line churches, particularly by Catholic and several Anglican churches which strictly followed liturgy handed over to them.  That is why Balagangadhara says, ‘…The so-called religious “rituals”, like the Catholic mass, are considered important by those who participate in them because of the liturgy.  Some actions are allowed because they are textually guided and interpreted.  They are better called liturgical actions,¹⁴ not rituals….’ [Balagangadhara, 2005, p. 417]

So when we try to analyze and bring it under any particular category, then any human act won’t neatly fit in to it.  Rituals are physical acts in which materials are used.  At the same time on philosophical level in few cases its purpose is spiritualized.  If we began to ‘spiritualize’ everything then life lived in a body which requires so many material things to survive become meaningless and purposeless.  According to my understanding, Muktiveda never allows us to go to that extreme of ‘spiritualizing’ every human act at the cost of the reality of material needs in life.  A Tamil saying might help us to understand the difference between an act and a ritual: water becomes ‘teerthanm’ (holy water) only when it is poured from a conch shell’.  (சங்கிலிருந்து விழுந்தால்தான் தீர்த்தம்).  The same water when poured from a conch shell in a ritual becomes holy water, whereas when it is used for other purpose in a ritual (like washing the hands or other things) it does not become holy water.  When the same water is used to wash the deity after every ‘abishekam’ (anointment), then it is collected and received as ‘prasad’. 

Over spiritualizing every ritual might end up creating only dry intellectualism which might not appeal to ordinary people.¹⁵  There is also a danger here.  By spiritualizing every ritual we cannot say that it is nothing but to express the personal relationship between a bhakta and bhagavan therefore there is no need of any ritual or sacrament to worship god.  My response to this is, if relationship alone is so important then what is the need for worship even?  Does god going to understand and accept your relationship only if you worship him or her?  For a bhakta relationship with her bhagavan is important. Worship is only one of the acts to express and enjoy that relationship.  But that relationship is expressed through ritual by giving expression to the inner joy and experience of it.¹⁶  If you love someone, then show it.¹⁷  As I say in different context not using any symbol itself a symbol as there can be no tasteless food. Every food has its own taste. When we are not familiar with a particular taste we may say that it is a tasteless food.  Whereas it has only a different taste and not remain a tasteless food.  To say in other words, according to my understanding not performing any ritual in worshiping god itself is another kind of ritual.  So through worship we celebrate our relationship with god and by performing (or not performing) ritual we give physical expression to it. 

Above all ritual is not merely a religious performance.  Note what Clarence says about this:

…rituals and sacraments are historical entities and sociological necessities.¹⁸ While religion may be seen as a personal and private relationship between the individual and his deity, this relationship grows out of, and develops in, historical sociological situation. In the first place, at least in the formal sense it is a learned relationship. (p.6) The individual forms his conceptions of God and deities and the forms and manners of relating to them in and through society.  These are socially given constructs at least in the initial stages which may later develop into mystical and transcendental experience.  Rituals and sacraments are essential part of this process and cannot be done with.  Secondly, at least from a Christian point of view, the religiosity of a person involves a two way relationship.  It is not only a person’s relationship with God but also that with his fellowmen.  Through rituals and sacraments the community of faith is maintained and organized and as such relates with the world. [McMullern, 1979, pp. 6-7]

And in relating to the world, it also ‘establishes an intimate relation between religion and non-religious acts’ [ibid.] ….¹⁹[Chaubay, 1979 p. 39]  That is why, ‘….Rituals cannot be private acts because they can be imitated.  Being a public event, in this sense of intersubjectivity—even if it concerns only a small secret or tantric circle of initiated specialists—is thus another formal criterion….’[Michaels. 2018, p. 433]

Anothe important fact about ritual is that ‘….rituals are often believed to be effective independent of their meaning: ex opera operato.  This means that they cannot be reversed, for that requires a new ritual. [Michaels. 2018, p. 433].  This we can understand by noting that a sannyasi need to perform another karma (ritual) in order to give up entire karma (rituals).  But note that doing any ritual is not mere act or karma according to Hindu (theological) worldview:

‘The sacrifice is the highest and best work (of ritual),’ says the Satapatha–brahmana {yajno vai sresthamam karma. 1.7.1.5. [Weber, 1882-1900] From a brahmanical point of view, rituals are seen as constructions of a world with which man ritually identifies himself: ‘Man is born into a world made by himself”{ Satapatha–brahmana 6.2.2.7}. Only by ritual, and not by ‘normal’ (karma) action, can he be liberated—or, conversely, by no action at all. Thus, ritual action has to be separated from non-ritual action, as the Bhagavadgita clearly says: ‘This world is bound by the bonds of action (karma) except where that action is done sacrificially.’ (Gita, 3.9ab Hill, 1928.)[Michaels. 2018, p. 436]

That is why, ‘…Rituals must be performed consciously, and, at the same time, the consciousness should not affect the rituals too much.’[Michaels. 2018, p. 441]

As relativism and pluralism is a Hindu reality, both philosophy and practice can go hand in hand as one compliments the other.  Whereas followers of Abrahamic faith has to use too much words to explain their ritual when compare with other faiths.  For example Amini says:

…but in Islam we have no such rituals.  Islam presents a code of life, based on Divine guidance and is free from all man made shackles of rituals and sacraments. [Amini, 1979, p.131] [Emphasis added]

But compare what he continues to say:

The remaining four pillars of Islam embody the four basic forms of worship by which a Muslim expresses his reverence and love for the Master.  While the keynote in all these forms of worship is to honor and love God wholeheartedly, certainly rituals are also prescribed so that the body may join the heart and soul in the acts of worship…. [132] …Islamic prayers or rituals, if we so call them, are thus nothing but the physical symbols of the inner yearnings of the devotee for the Almighty God…. [ibid. 132-133] [emphasis added]

This became more complex when rituals are standardized and theologized by making them as ‘Sacrament’ in Christianity.  Of course even in Hinduism the agamas has done the same,²⁰ which later extended to a limited way in performing domestic rituals and pujas by publishing printed books for every ritual both in temple and at home.  Now they are available in market even in regional languages which can be used in the absence of ritual specialists to perform it.  For example in the past Brahmin priest services are required to do New Moon ritual (amavasya tarpana).  But now one can do it following the printed text available in the market or listening to audio or watching video recording.  But the same is not the case when it comes to performing ‘sacraments’ in Christianity.  Apart from the complex theological development and understanding, most of them cannot be performed by lay believers in a church.  To Bring all the points related with the complexity regarding sacrament is beyond the scope of this paper.  As a lay person, not knowing theology and technical terms in the original (Greek, Latin, etc.) I cannot say anything about sacrament here.  However there are scholarly books written on this subject which one can read and try to understand—though it is not going to be that much easy.  Where the scholars are stumble, I should not even dare to talk about it.  So I am going to give some important points from the Scholarly work at the end in the appendix.

Notes

1.. Prasad as ‘grace’ is adjective I think.  But when we use it for any items that we consume it becomes ‘noun’.  This I say not knowing English grammar properly. However note how several Sanskrit words meaning have changed:

As is the case with so many Sanskrit words, the semantic range of uddhaara is broad, including as it does the supreme goal of liberation and the uprooting of criminals, as well as the more specialized legal meanings of a portion of inheritance or the booty allowed to a king during war….In the modern period the word uddhaara came to be used in the sense of ‘reform’ and ‘improvement’ (unnati).  These concepts, which were central to bourgeois discourse during the nineteenth century, played a prominent role in the discourse of the Indian Renaissance…..—Hatcher, notes, 10, p. 174

2.. …prasaada is the material symbol of the deities’ power and grace, which are internalised by the worshippers when they eat the food.— Vijay Nath, p.140

3. Personal communication from DD

4. …For instance, the saying of grace before meals, a habit of many Christians, is a ritual of only those individuals in the Christian community who may be in a habit of saying grace, whereas it ceases to be a ritual for those in the group who do not have the habit to do so.— Khiyalie, p. 79

5.. …Though from the praises [in Reg Veda] of the gods one might infer that it was the gods who were upposed to bestow the benefits, it was in fact the complete set of ritualistic performances that was considered to be the cause of the showering of the benefits.  It was supposed that these ritualistic performances when carried out in all their details, precisely and accurately, could by their joint and mysterious effect produce a mysterious something whereby the prayers were fulfilled. (p.4)

…And it was enjoined that all the observances should be performed in exact accordance with the prescriptions laid down in the Brahmana literature.  Even the slightest inaccuracy or the most trifling inexactness would be sufficient to spoil the entire effect of the sacrifice….(p.5) Tvashtar had performed a sacrifice for the birth of a son who might kill Indra, but owing to a slight error in pronunciation the meaning of the prayer was changed and the sacrifice produced a son who was not a killer of Indra but of whom Indra was the killer. —Dasgupta, pp.4, 5-6

6 Cort. ‘Jains, caste and hierarchy in north Gujarat’, In Dipankar Gupta, CASTE IN QUESTION, Identity or Hierarchy?  New Delhi, SAGE Publications, 2004,  p.85.

7. M.N. Srinivas, ‘Some Reflections on the nature of caste Hierarchy’, pp. 173-186, p. 184.  in op. cit.. Note further what Srinivas says: …The Bhangi are scavengers, and they also remove, at village dinners, the impure leaves on which the higher castes have eaten. Finally, they also eat the impure food left on the leaves by the higher castes.—ibid. p. 184 [it should be noted that now almost this practice disappeared in most parts of India].

8 ‘prasada (food sanctified by being offered to the deity that is being propitiated)….’—Srinivasan, ibid.—p. 184 Also note that, ‘We have seen that an implicit idea in prasad taking is that, as one might put it in English, “you become what you eat”…..{The same expression exists in Hindi: jaisa ann, vaisa man)….’—Babb, p. 79

9 India Mystica, CD copy, pp. 3-4

10 Even today one can witness when several materials used for ‘abhisheka’ (abhishekam in Tamil) some of them are collected back to distribute as prasad. But when liquid items like milk, curd, honey, coconut water etc. are poured on the deity, then water is poured to clean and that water will be taken by the devotees witness that event as prasad.  Regarding abhisheka Davis says: …Abhiseka is a constitutive ritual action, in which substances and related powers are first collected into a liquid form and then infused into a recipient by pouring the substances over it….—Davis. p. 355

11. …The religious experience is established and externalized in the rituals and the accumulation of similar experiences slowly extends the dimension of the ritual. A rejection of rituals, therefore, is necessarily a rejection of the externalized reality of the actual spiritual experience. Langer observes, ‘with the formalization of overt behaviour in the presence of the sacred objects, we come into the filed of ritual.  This is, so to speak, a complement to the life-symbols; for as the latter present the basic facts of human existence, the forces of generation and achievement and death, so the rites enacted at their contemplations formulate and record man’s response to those supreme realities.’{Suzanne, p. 124}… ‘the vital ideas embodied in it cannot be repudiated because some one discovers that the myth does not constitute a fact’. {ibid. P. 164}….—p. 101

12…Of course, there is a purpose to rituals. Its function, you guessed it, is to reduce anxiety and tension; to act as a cementing bond of the community (‘re–ligare’ perhaps)…and so on.  It is far from me to deny that ritual does any or all of these things, but, surely, this is a bit silly.  The same is also said of religion, of dancing in Africa, of anything one does not know much about, which is just about everything regarding human beings and their societies: war does it, sex does it, ideology does it, worldviews do it, magic does it, religions do it…So, Why cannot rituals do it too?  This is the reason why one performs (what appears like) a ‘repetitive, mechanical, stereotyped’ activity.

            Many recognise that, on their own, rituals are ‘meaningless’.  They do that by referring to a parasitic relation between the rituals and something else.  Rituals enact a myth; or they are ‘symbolic’ actions, which signify or rehearse important events; or whatever else takes your fancy.  The motivation is the same in both cases: ritual appears meaningless, but it is not.  Why ever not?  ‘Because all our actions are meaningful’. —Balagangadhara, p.416

All wisely-directed rites, when they are not simply commemorative or symbolical, have corresponding virtues in view.  For instance, an offering to the gods is a rite and it is intended to lead to self-sacrifice, which is a virtue.  Almsgiving is laid down as a rite, and it is intended to lead to generosity, which is a virtue.  Fasting is a rite, and it is intended to lead to self-control, which is a virtue…It is only when rituals are made ends in themselves, without leading to any virtues or to any chastening of the spirit, that they become dead-wood impending the growth of the soul. —Sarma, p.28

13…In essence, the difference between a ritual and a sacrament is not of form but that of content.  This difference of content, however, is of a subjective nature and is attached to a particular ritual by the Church and the believer.  It is only when this content of grace is attached to a form that a ritual becomes a sacrament and then implies a symbolic meaning or implication to the believer….— Khiyalie, op. cit. p.82

14… The term “ritual” signifies the words of a liturgical service and, therefore, is to be contrasted with “ceremonial”. The “ritual” is something good, but the “ceremonial” is something bad. It is a task of Christian theology to see that Christian rituals and sacraments do not become the “ceremonial”….—NIRMAL, p.66.

15 It is a recognized view in the Upanisads that meditation on the significance of a sacrifice yields the same result as the actual performance thereof. Ritual in the sense of a ceremonial act is an aid only at the initial stages in inward life.— T,M,P. MAHADEVAN, p.53

16        If, however, desire is the only qualification for union with Krishna, what is meant by the austerities and devotional acts the gopis have undertaken as part of the vowed ritual?  The commentator {Periyavaccan Pillai} observes that despite the fact that the ritual was undertaken as a pretext, it must not be abandoned by them once access to Krishna is gained but must be adhered to until completed.  That is the nature of a vow.  But the acts performed as part of it do not produce union with Krishna; the gopis are in no sense to be understood as bringing about the attainment of their goal by doing anything—service of Krishna can only be bestowed by Krishna himself.( p. 264)

            All lovers of the Lord perform ritual acts of worship as part of their service to him, but such ritual acts must not be viewed either as expressing one’s inherent qualification as a person fit to serve him, or as activities through which one becomes qualified to serve him.  The desire is all that is needed, and any shift to reliance on one’s own activities as qualifications—such as ritual purifications, sustained meditation, or righteous behaviour—must be guarded against even while they are (p.267) to be practiced…. —Hudson, 2010, pp. 264, 267-68

17        The Nayanars are well aware that ritual, by its very definition, holds the possibility of degenerating into mechanical piety, devoid of the emotion and spontaneity that is the essence of bhakti religion. Yet they view acts of ritual worship as an essential expression of emotional bhakti….( p. 43) For Appar, Campanta, and Cuntarar, ritual is beautiful. It is an important component of bhakti as aesthetic experience.  Ritual is an essential means for expressing one’s love for the Lord; it can be as emotionally charged as dancing or singing. Lastly, it consists of acts of offering and service, the ideal way of life for the true devotee.— Peterson, 1991. pp.43,  44

…Even though the biblical literature purged the rituals of the magical element, the institutionalized practices and the terminology describing them at times still contained the trappings or vestiges of the broader culture.—Walton2000, Introduction, Leviticus, p.25

18…And, just as the Vedas teach us religious ritual through textual rules, so also do the Dharmasastras teach us social ritual through textual rules.  In this way, law and religion merge within dharma in a way that makes it difficult to disaggregate them in many instances.— Davis, Jr. Introduction.  2018, p. 7

19  Hopkins, p. 180.  [Year is not mentioned], quoted by Chaubay, op. cit. p.39

20…Both Brahman scholars and Western academics perpetuated the concept that knowing Sanskrit texts alone implies ‘proper’ ritual knowledge. According to this perception, standardized texts alone are the source of authoritative knowledge (Fuller, 2003: 86)

            In this way, the medieval ritual texts (agamas and sahmitas) were transformed into ‘holy books’ of temple ritual, they were printed and published, and made available to temple priests….— Husken, pp. 124-146, 2016,p. 143

Appendix

Sacrament

In the first century, the Lord’s Supper included not only the bread and the cup but an entire meal.  As part of the meal, neighbors who had quarreled made peace again.— Did you know?, John O. Gooch, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol. X, No.1), p.3

When worship was ended, Christians took home the consecrated bread so that those who couldn’t attend worship could partake of the Lord’s Supper.  In North Africa, Christians took home the bread so they could celebrate the sacrament every day with their families.  Thus, ‘Give us today our daily bread’ carried a deeper meaning.— Did you know?, John O. Gooch, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol.X, No.1),p.3

            It is clear from the New Testament that the Last Supper did not merely contain a meal but was a meal.  It was Jesus’ custom to impart, especially to those closest to him, his gospel while dining with them.  Even after his resurrection he reveals himself to two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus ‘in the breaking of bread’ (Luke 24:13-35), and to others by the Sea of Tiberias at breakfast (John 21:1-29).— Aidan Kavanagh, Repeating the Unrepeatable, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol. X, No.1), p.39

…Altogether it would seem that, while his language is not fully explicit, Justin is feeling his way to the conception of the eucharist as the offering of the Saviour’s passion.  Irenaeus’s thought moves along rather different lines and does not link the eucharist so closely with Christ’s atoning death…— J.N.D. Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, Second Edition, 1960; Harper & Row, Pub. New York, p.197

…Ignatius roundly declares that `the eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father in His goodness raised’.  The bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup His blood.  Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body…—ibid., p.197

…So Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood.  His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity.  Like Justin, too, he seems to postulate a change,…—ibid., p.198

            Occasionally these writers use language which has been held to imply that, for all its realist sound, their use of the terms `body’ and `blood’ may after all be merely symbolical.  Tertullian, for example, refers to the bread as `a figure’ (figura) of Christ’s body, and once speaks of `the bread by which He represents (repraesentat) His very body’.  Yet we should be cautious about interpreting such expressions in a modern fashion.  According to ancient modes of thought a mysterious relationship existed between the thing symbolized and its symbol, figure or type; the symbol in some sense was the thing symbolized.  Again, the verb repraesentare, in Tertullian’s vocabulary, retained its original significance of `to make present’.  All that his language really suggests is that, while accepting the equation of the elements with the body and blood, he remains conscious of the sacramental distinction between them…. Similarly, when Cyprian states that `in the wine Christ’s blood is shown’ (in vino vero ostendi sanguinem Christi), we should recall that in the context he is arguing against heretics who willfully use water instead of wine at the eucharist….(p.212) His point is simply that wine is an essential ingredient of the eucharist, since numerous Old Testament texts point to it as a type of the precious blood….(p.213)

            A different situation confronts us when we turn to the Alexandrian fathers, for, while they verbally reproduce the conventional realism, their bias to allegory and their Platonizing absorption in the spiritual world behind phenomena alter their perspective.  Clement frequently writes in terms of the equivalence of the elements with Christ’s body and blood, in one passage representing Him as identifying them with Himself….More often than not, however, what seems a firm reference to the eucharist dissolves into an allegory of the true gnostic’s knowledge; feeding on the flesh and blood of the Logos means apprehending the divine power and essence….Much more important in his eyes, however, than this `typical and symbolical body’, as he designates the consecrated bread, is the Logos Himself, Who became flesh and is (p.213) our authentic food.  A host of passages suggest that for him Christ’s body and blood signify, in a deeper and more spiritual sense, His teaching, the ineffable truth which He reveals and which nourishes and sustains the soul.  The outward rite, he implies, which imparts the sacramental body and blood, is for the simpler grade of Christians, while the more advanced, with their profounder insight, find nourishment in the Logos Himself.—ibid., pp.213-14

            As regards the Holy Communion, the eucharistic prayer had previously been conceived as effecting the consecration, but (p.425) attempts were now made to define the causal efficacy more precisely.  One widespread theory was that consecratory power lay in the repetition by the priest, acting in Christ’s stead, of the words used by Christ at the Last Supper.  Chrysostom, for example, states that the priest, standing in the Lord’s place, repeats the sentence, `This is my body’, and its effect is to transform the elements on the altar…On the other hand, such a document as Serapion’s liturgy exhibits traces of the idea that what consecrates the gifts is the descent of the divine Word upon them.  At the same time we see emerging the theory, already adumbrated in the Didascalia, that their transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit….Theodore of Mopsuestia seems to combine the two conceptions, stating that `when the priest declares them [i.e. the bread and wine] to be Christ’s body and blood, he clearly reveals that they have become such by the descent of the Holy Spirit’, although his general teaching is that the eucharistic mystery is accomplished by the descent of the Spirit….—ibid., pp.425-26

Nocke: …Of course a theologians who uses the term ‘sacrament’ also has to say what he specifically means with it. A very pragmatic answer to this question would be: sacraments are those fundamental gestures of fellowship in faith in which the proximity of God grants itself to us and which in fact have become classical signs in the Church.

In a narrower sense of the word, the sacraments at the same time draw our attention to our relationship towards the world….— Death and Resurrection as the Mystery of Christian Existence.  Franz-Josef Nocke.  Pp. 411-[428]450, in, Andreas Bsteh (ed.),  Christian Faith in Dialogue with Hindu Religious Traditions [Christian Faith in the Encounter with Hinduism 2],  Modling 2007, St Gabriel Publications,  p. 434

Nocke: …The same is true of the words.  Words of the sacraments are those that join together, like: I take you as my husband, as my wife, I shall love you, cherish, and honour you. Other performatives, such as: I curse you, I do not want to see you any longer, cannot be sacramental words. Hence, on no account is everything a sacrament. The meaning of the sacraments is rather to show that there exists a (p.434) sacramental figure of the world – in the midst of all this is not a sing of salvation and even does not want to be.—ibid. Death and Resurrection as the Mystery of Christian Existence.  Franz-Josef Nocke.  Pp. 411-[428]450, in, pp. 434-35

Bibliography

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Dasgupta, S.N. HINDU MYSTICISM, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, (1927), 1992,

Davis. Richard H. Images and Temples.  Pp. 347-367, in Patrick Olivelle and Donald R. Davis, Jr. Eds. Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmasastra, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2018,

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Prasad Problem – Part Two

When a Hindu gives Prasad of any deity, a Christian (particularly an evangelical) is expected to refuse to accept it.  Giving reason for this, in general, they say that if a Hindu gives a laddu by saying that it is a good sweet accept it with thanks.  But if she says that it is the Prasad of Balaji then doesn’t accept because of her conscious that worship of Balaji is OK.

This is correct from their evangelical perspective and we have to agree with it.  But they view the attitude of that Hindu (friend or relative or neighbor who is in good terms with you alone will give you that laddu) from their own (doctrinal) perspective.  They refuse to see it from the Hindu point of view:

1. When a Hindu devotee gives any Prasad of any deity, she is very clear in her conscious that when you accept it, she does not expect you to compromise your faith in your god.  She never expects or will even accept that by accepting it you are even agreeing with her faith.  She knows that you are not ‘ok’ with her faith in her god and she does not depends upon your ‘ok’ or not ‘ok’ to hold her faith in her god.   She also does not think that by accepting the Prasad you are giving up your faith in your god and now become a bhakta of Balaji. And even if you want to give up your faith in your god and want to follow her deity, most of the time she will say ‘no’ to it. She will say, ‘your god is good for you. My god is good for me.  So you need not give up your faith in your god and began to worship my god.’  At the same time, she will be pleased if you insist of following of her god by giving up your faith in the Lord.
2. When she is very clear in her conscious then why she wants to give that Prasad to you?  Because she is your friend. And when you accept it, you are acknowledging her love for you and not her faith.  A Hindu who is not in good terms with anyone, particularly to an enemy will never share the Prasad. 
3. Even because of her conscious if you say ‘no’ she will magnanimously say ‘ok’ and will never insist. But the question is have you ever told that you are not accepting that Prasad only because of ‘HER CONSCIOUS’ and not because of ‘YOUR CONSCIOUS’?  If you say, what would be her response?  She will definitely say that, ‘I am clear in my conscious. I don’t want you to agree with my faith (and I don’t even want your approval for my faith), or acknowledge my god or give up your faith or even expect you to compromise your faith.’  But most of the time the evangelicals never give any explanation to their Hindu friends particularly about their so called ‘CONSCIOUS’ but will politely say that their ‘OUR FAITH WON’T ALLOW US TO ACCEPT THE PRASAD OF OTHER GODS’.  And a sincere Hindu respecting your stand for your faith will happily acknowledge such faith and won’t insist of giving any Prasad.  Because even among various Hindu sampradayas one sect won’t allow its followers to accept the Prasad of another sect.^@ For example, a staunch Srivaishnava won’t eat the Prasad of any Saiva deity. 
4. When a Hindu distributes Prasad of her deity, she never asks about your faith or even thinks about it. She is under an obligation to share the ‘grace’ (Prasad) of her deity with others and cannot take back all of them with her.  Before distributing her Prasad she won’t even ask what your faith is or which religion you belong. Her conscious is very clear—share the grace of god with others.  Now accepting or rejecting is left to you.
5. But the question is: is it because of your faith that you refuse to receive the prasad?  Or fear that devil will attack you if you accept the Prasad?  Or God will punish you as you have compromised your faith by accepting the Prasad from a Hindu?  If you say ‘no’ to the Prasad for any of these reasons, then you have to question such kind of faith in the Lord. EVEN YOU HAVE TO QUESTION THIS KIND OF GOD!  If your god does not have power to protect you from the attack of the devil as you have taken Prasad, then who is more powerful?  Or if your god is going to punish you because you took Prasad and compromised with your faith, then how much more he or she has to punish the way you are compromising your faith in all other areas of your life?  If nothing is going to separate you from the Love of god, then why a small laddu from Balaji will separate you from the same love?
6. Now think about such a scenario.  After refusing to accept her Prasad, when you invite her to come to your church or Christmas Party what would be her reaction and response.  Most of the time she will never say that ‘I won’t come as you refuse to accept the Prasad which I gave’.  She will accept the invitation for two reasons: to honor you and celebrate your friendship and also to enjoy good Christmas cakes—which she won’t normally get other times.  Whatever might be your CONSCIOUS or even INTENTION—which a discerning Hindu knows very well, she will accept the invitation.  She might even know your intension behind that invention—to share the gospel!  Hindus are not that much naïve as you think.
7. This leads to the next question of (spiritual) ethics.  When you invite any of your Hindu friends or acquaintance for any Christmas party or even for a meal or cup of tea only with a HIDDEN AGENDA OF SHARING THE GOSPEL then how far that is ethically correct?  You try to EXPLOIT your friendship for your vested interest and not honoring and celebrating the friendship just for the sake of it.  Even your friendship is Pseudo one.  Your friend is merely an ‘object’ or ‘target’ for you.  You may hide it behind your evangelical call and burden by saying that you are expected to share the good news in both ‘season and out of season’.  And you have every right to do it.  Then why not honestly and openly tell your Hindu friend or acquaintance that you have invited her for the party or meal or tea only to ‘share the gospel’ to her or for a dialogue?  Why not you give her a choice to decide but try to exploit her relationship with you for your Agenda. This is what the Missionaries have done in the past.  When they distributed food material for famine hit people, before giving it, they ‘COMPELLED THEM TO SIT AND LISTEN THEIR PREACHING’.  This is OUTRIGHT HUMAN RIGHT VIOLATION.  Even today in most of the Mission Hospitals in the OPD section, the patients and their relatives (who brought them for treatment) are ‘FORCED TO LISTEN THE GOSPEL’ preached by the PAID evangelist.  Can you deny this?  If love and service is your real motive then do it silently not IMPOSING YOUR FAITH ON THEM.  If motivated by some evangelical urge making any contact or acquaintance or friends and then use them for your Agenda by engaging in KABADIC KABADY evangelism or HIT and RUN evangelism or TOURIST  evangelism needs to be questioned and challenged by everyone.  Note what Sudhakar says about such service by Mission:

Hospitals, schools, and orphanages as institutions of service in Christ’s name were begun during the colonial era and these were also centres of Christian propaganda. It was only later that these institutions were seen as Christian expressions of love and compassion for all humans. [emphasis added]— Wilhelmina Sudhakar, Chosen to Serve: The Life and Writings of Paul Sudhakar, 2007.p. 169

8. My next point is the so called ‘CONSCIOUS’ of the Hindu friend or neighbor.  From where they get this point?  Again from Paul’s teaching in Corinthians.  But what is the context there?  The first context is in I Cor. 8: 9-13which talks about eating the beef which is served in temple premises in Corinthian city where free beef meal is available in the temple.  If my understanding is correct here Paul is not talking about ‘buying’ the meat sold in the market which is coming from the temple sacrifice. So the buyer and seller know from where it is coming.  But here the context is taking a free meal served in the temple premises with beef briyani.  Just for the sake of the conscious of the weak brother/sister resist your temptation for a free biryani served in the temple.  But I will even object such suggestion by Paul.  Just stretch your imagination a bit and bring to the Indian context.  We know that free meal is served in (many) Hindu temples known as ‘annadhana(m)’.  Who will go and eat there?  Only the Hindus or in our context a Hindu bhakta of the Lord who knows very well that idol is nothing and every good is a gift from God (I Cor. 8: 4-6).  Now another Hindu bhakta see it.  And she is weak in her faith.  And if she too is tempted to eat that free temple meal, how the first Hindu bhakta should respond?  If I were there, I will ask that weak brother to join and enjoy the meal. Then I will, denying a nap after a good meal, will give proper teaching to that weak brother about what Paul says in I Cor. 8: 4-6.  Above all being a fellow Hindu, she already knows about the temple free meal which she too enjoyed in the past.  The next scenario of the weak brother is a traditional Christian from his church.  And here the question is what to do because of the weakness of that traditional Christian from the same church?  If I were there I will tell him to come out from his weakness and study the Word of God properly than merely listening to the three point regular sermon from the pulpit week after week and continue to remain weak in his faith and conscious.  Even after few generations as a Christian if that Christian refused to listen or understand the word of god, then I will allow him to continue to remain in his weakness.  Because even after several generation if he cannot become strong both in his faith and conscious someone one like me a recent ‘convert’ can never help him to become strong.  Let him continue to live in his weakness and use it as a victim card.  But I won’t budge to it and become a victim to such blackmail. Remember this context of ‘conscious’ about eating a temple meal should not be the criteria to refuse to receive the Prasad from your Hindu friend or neighbor.
9. The next scenario is in I Cor. 10: 19 to 30, specifically in verse 28.  Here the context is not about giving a temple Prasad (Balaji Laddu in our case) but invited for a meal by a host.  Before giving my view on this let us listen what Bailey,{Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural studies in 1 Corinthians, Downers Grove, Illinois, IVP Academic,} the Middle Eastern Scholar says about it. Though it is bit long, still it is worth to read as it is.  First I will quote only the relevant for our discussion. Rest I will give in the appendix:

…Paul created a multicultural church, and he urges his readers to care for the interests of  “the other” (believer or nonbeliever), setting aside their own interests.

               The opening lines of each of these two cameos are related in a special way. Cameo 1 sets out general principles while cameo 7  offers applications of those principles.  We can almost hear the conversation between Paul and his readers. It is as if they are engaged in the following dialogue:

Paul       As a general principle (cameo 1 {10:23}) can say, “All things are lawful to me but they are not all helpful. Nor do all things build up.”

Paul’s readers         Can you give us a general sense as to how to apply these two principles?

Paul       Yes, I can (cameo 7 {10:32-33}).  Let us look at the two parts of what I have just said.

Regarding being helpful, don’t offend Jews, Greeks or the church of God. You gain nothing by offending people. It makes them angry, and they become entrenched in their opposing views.  Giving offense is simply not helpful.

As for building up, when you do not offend you have the opportunity to commend your message of salvation, and in the process build up the community at large. You need to also build up the believing community internally.  Work to build up, not tear down. (p. 287) […]

In cameo 7 Paul sets a high standard. He is engaged in evangelism and his theological goal is clear.  But his method is also clear.  The standard is: Give no offense to Jews, Greeks or to the church.  For him there will be no public attacks on the faith of others.  Critical analysis, yes, attacks—no!  While writing to Christians he does not hide the fact that the gods of the “the Gentiles” do not exist and that their worship brings them into fellowship with demons. As noted, archaeology has identified Greek shrines in Corinth dedicated to the worship of twelve different gods.  But there is no attack on any of these idols, their sacred books, their temples or their priests.  When lecturing on Mars Hill (Acts 17: 22-31) Paul found common ground between his message and respected Greek authors. In Paul’s ministry, tolerance, open-mindedness and respect flowed together with critical analysis and non-apologetic evangelism. To update Paul’s directive into the twenty-first century we could say, “Give no offense to Jews or to Muslims or to the church of God. Do not seek your own advantage, but theirs—and at the appropriate time, in a respectful and culturally sensitive way, bear witness to the Christian story without apology.” This directive is clear, yet Paul leaves the reader with a further question.

               The second semantic envelope in this homily (cameos 2, 6) is also remarkable. The two matching cameos are seen together in figure 3.3(3).

2..          ²⁵ Eat whatever is sold in the meat market

                              Without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

²⁶ For “the earth is the Lord’s,                                    EAT

and everything in it.”                                                   ALL Is the Lord’s

_

6             ³¹ So, whether you eat or drink,

               or whatever you do,                                                     EAT

               do all to the glory of God.                                           In All—Glorify God

Figure 3.6(3). Cameos 2 and 6 (I Cor 10: 25-26, 31)

These two cameos unite around the topic of “eating and the divine.”  Cameo 2 tells the reader: All meat sold in the marketplace belongs to God, not to the idols, because the entire earth is the Lord’s. This affirmation must have been hugely liberating for Paul’s readers.  Imagine a new Greek Christian entering the meat market in Corinth with great inner turmoil and wondering, “If this meat was offered to Asclepius, the god of health, it must belong to him.  And if I buy it and eat it, will Asclepius make me sick because I no longer worship him?”  “No,” answers Paul—“it all belongs to the one Lord who created all things” (cameo 2). Such fears are groundless. So if you eat it or do not eat it—give all glory to God alone (cameo 6) and do not be afraid. (p.289) {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}(italics original)—ibid. pp.287-89

               As is common the climax of the homily appears in the center (cameo 40, where love is prominent.)  Paul indirectly tells his readers, “Your rights and your freedom are not the only components in this discussion.  What about love?”  We do not know if the informant whispering in the ear of the Christian guest is the unbelieving host showing consideration to his guest, or a fellow Christian who happens to be present at the banquet.  In either case, what should the Christian guest do when he or she is specifically informed at the banquet about the pagan origins of the meat? [emphasis added by DB]

To paraphrase Paul’s directive he seems to be telling his readers,

If you are invited to a meal in an unbeliever’s home and someone quietly informs you that the meat is “idol food,” out of your love for the informant, who is trying to be sensitive to what he thinks are your feelings, don’t eat the meat.  Your freedom should be tempered by love. {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. p. 290}

I don’t need to add many more words to explain further as Bailey presented a clear picture.  But let me begin with the question here. This is what Bailey says, ‘We do not know if the informant whispering in the ear of the Christian guest is the unbelieving host showing consideration to his guest, or a fellow Christian who happens to be present at the banquet.’

So we actually don’t know who is the informant who has whispered about the meat? Now my question to Bailey keeping only Indian context is: what is the purpose of INVITING A GUEST  for a meal?  If you tell something or behave in certain way which will stop him in participating in the meal it is not only considered as a showing disrespect to the guest but also a sin which will wipe out all the merit of the host.  This we can read from the story of Nachiketas in Katha Upanishad where Yama come forward to give three boons to Nachiketas as he stayed three nights in his house without food as Yama was not in the house^& Leave the Upanishad, even an ordinary Indian knows that a guest must be respected and treated well. The main purpose of inviting the guest is to feed him well.  Then why the host or someone else should whisper on the ear of the guest to warn him about the meat!  Does he not know that this will prevent him taking the meal?  In an ordinary home, the parents will warn their children and other members to behave properly with the guest. Particularly when food is served, no one should tell or talk anything which will irritate the guest or the family member who is eating will stop and get up in the middle.  In fact, this will bring humiliation to the host more than to the guest.  When the father rebukes the child or children on anything while she or they eat, the mother will rebuke the husband not to ‘scold’ while they are eating.  And which host, even a Christian host will whisper on the ear of the guest about the origin of the meat which will prevent the guest to eat the meal which in the end will become an embarrassing situation for the host?  And why not inform the guest before the sending the invitation about the origin of the meat for him decides about accepting the invitation?

Next is that in the Corinthian context—both the guest and host know from where the meat is coming.  So there is no need to warn the guest about it.  Even if the informant is not the host but someone else who is invited for the banquet, the guest already knows about the origin of the meat.  Most of the meat sold in the market in Corinthians is coming from the temple sacrifice.  Even if we take for granted, that considering the ‘conscience’ of the guest the host bought it from other place, which might be very expensive, then what is the need to warn about it to the guest. In case if the informant is not the host but another person also invited for the banquet, who actually does not know that the host bought the meat from other place and still warns the guest about it by ‘WHISPERING’ before checking with the host, what any sensible guest will do?  He will either think that this informant is a trouble maker or came only to humiliate the host.

So how can we make any remark based on such imagination? So let me also imagine.  The guest is a recent convert who become ‘Sam’ from ‘Shyam’ and the host is his close friend or relative still a Hindu known as Ram.  But Ram’s wife is famous for making delicious biryani which everyone likes.  But the previous night Ram and his wife had a small quarrel.  So in order to take revenge on her husband, she prepared tastier biryani but very limited one. When Ram asked about it, she told that she is run out of other masalas so she cannot make more than that and promised that another day she will make still tastier biryani for him, but at present let them feed only the guest.  But both Sam and Ram were close friends.  So when Ram’s wife before serve the briyani told Sam that Ram’s has stomach problem therefore he cannot eat that briyani today.  Knowing this trap, when she went to the kitchen Ram whispered about the origin of the meat to Sam thinking that this will stop him taking that biryani alone which he can take later.  But knowing his trick, Sam with a smile said to Ram, ‘arye yar.  I know about the quarrel between you and your wife.  Don’t try to cheat me.  We know both well from where the meat is coming.  So your whisper won’t work and I thought of requesting your wife to serve a bit not to disappoint you. But now I am going to join her and we both won’t allow you to taste even a spoon of biryani’. Then both of them were laughing and bringing the biryani. Ram’s wife also laughed and showed some mercy to her husband by giving his share.

The next one is joining the pagan worship.  Here the context is not receiving Prasad from your Hindu friend or accepting invitation for a meal from your host, but voluntarily and consciously participating in the idol worship having some faith in it.  If a ‘convert’ or ‘Hindu bhakta of the Lord’ or even a traditional Christian deliberately make a choice to participate in an idol worship with an intention to receive the blessing from that deity then we need to question his bhakti in the Lord.  But it is a fact that not only new converts and several Hindu bhaktas but even traditional Christian do this.  So we have no two opinions in opposing such conflicting faith.  But what if a Hindu bhakta who is living with his family is invited to a family puja or visit to the temple of family deity (kula devata)?  If his family members already knew about his bhakti in the Lord, by refusing to participate the Hindu bhakta is not going to take any stand for the Lord for his faith.  They already knew that he is now worshiping only Muktinath.  But he participates in the ritual and puja to show solidarity with the family as a member of the family.  In case if his family members do not know about his faith, still by refusing to join he is not going to take any stand for the Lord.  His absence will become more problem and questioned by all.  But his presence will be ignored as he too will be one among the crowd and no one is going to watch whether he is sincerely and honestly participating in the puja and take part in all the ritual.  Even if he sincerely takes part or just ignore some of them, nobody is going to mind about it.  Because in several such family pujas or rituals, we can see that several members of the family will often walk out to talk with someone on phone or to receive others or busy in some other work. What is important and required is his presence.  Your absence will draw more attention but your presence will be often ignored.

Now what about a ‘Convert’ or a ‘traditional Christian’ for some reason forced to participate in such pujas (like Ayuda puja [vishvakarma puja] in the office during Navaratri) or inauguration of an office or company etc.  Others know about his faith.  Even if he actively participates in the puja and joins in the ritual and finally even receive the Prasad, no one is going to think that now he gave up his Christian faith and become a Hindu. 

Here I stop. I will give the rest of Bailey’s note with my comments within the text in red color. 

Notes

@…A staunch member of a sect might attend a ritual or ceremony in the home of a relative, friend or neighbor belonging to another sect, or in the home of a non-sectarian, but s/he is more likely to be an onlooker rather than a participant.  S/he might accept prasad in her/his hand at the end of the ritual, but will not eat it; giving it away rather to another person, usually a child or a servant, or to a cow.⁴  The leaders of almost every sect instruct its members to show respect to gods and goddesses of other sects, but never to seek refuge (aashraya, sharana) in any of them.— A. M. Shah. The Structure of Indian Society: then and now. New Delhi, Routledge, 2010. p. 82

4. While referring to the distinction between Shaivism and Vaishnavism in his Coorg book, [M.N.] Srinivas (Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India.  Oxford: Clarendon Press.1952:184, n1) notes that the orthodox followers of the one do not generally go to the temples of the other.  Similarly, Beteille (Andre, Social Organisation of Temples in a Tanjore Village.  History of Religions 5 (1): 74-92. 1965) reports how, in the Tamil village of his study, the orthodox Shri Vaishnava Brahmans worship Vishnu alone, and do not associate themselves with the worship of Shiva and Kali.  However, they seem to show some courtesy to the latter.  [Milton] Singer (When a Great Tradition Modernizes: An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization.  Delhi: Vikas. 1972:48) reports how his Brahman friend’s mother in Madras did not allow a ‘non-dualist’ Brahman into her kitchen, since her own family belonged to a ‘qualified dualist’ sect.  [Saurabh] Dube and [Ishita Banerjee] Dube (‘Specters of conversion: Transformation of Caste and Sect in India’, in Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke (eds). Religious Conversion in India, pp. 195-202. Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2003:238) report at some length the case of Nirmalprabha, daughter of a family belonging to the Mahima sect in Orissa: when she refused to accept the prasad brought by her mother-in-law from the Jagannath temple in Puri, she faced serious consequences.—p. 82

& Naciketas story from Katha Upanishad:

As a very fire a Brahmana guest enters into houses and (the people) do him this peace-offering; bring water, O Son of the Sun!.7

Hope and expectation, friendship and joy, sacrifices and good works, sons, cattle and all are taken away from a person of little understanding in whose house a Brahmana remains unfed.8

‘Since thou, a venerable guest, hast stayed in my house without food for three nights, I make obeisance to thee, O Brahmana.  May it be well with me. Therefore, in return, chose thou three gifts.—Katha Upanishad, I. 1. 7-9, S. Radhakrishnan, tr. Delhi, Oxford University Press,  (1953), Fifth impression 1992, pp. 597-98

Appendix: The entire notes from Bailey:

In order to save the space in my blog I have removed the appendix.  If someone wants to read it I can send it on request to the email—db

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               The overall essay focuses on the question of how Christians are to live out their lives in a pagan world. Are they to accommodate to that world, and if so—to what extent?  Are they to blend in or stand apart?  The question of food offered to idols offered Paul a concrete case study for a discussion of this critical concern. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}— Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural studies in 1 Corinthians, Downers Grove, Illinois, IVP Academic, p.229

A clear and powerful progression of thought moves through the homily {I Cor. 8:1-13}.  Love builds, while knowledge creates pride. It is not what we know that matters, but who knows us!  If we love God, God “knows” us.

1. Knowledge, love and God. Love is more important than knowledge.  Love builds, while knowledge creates pride. It is not what we know that matters, but who knows us!  If we love God, God “knows” us.
2. Knowledge, idols and God.  We know that idols have no existence. There is only one God who has created all things through one Lord.
3. Knowledge, your brother/sister and God.  The weak person may think that idols are real, and such a person’s conscience is defiled if he or she sees you eating meat offered to idols.
4. Knowledge, your brother/sister and Christ. This weak person is your sister or brother, and causing him or her to stumble is a failure to love and thereby a sin against Christ. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p. 232

A clear and powerful progression of thought moves through the homily {I Cor. 8:1-13}.  Love builds, while knowledge creates pride. It is not what we know that matters, but who knows us!  If we love God, God “knows” us.

…The sacrifices were the property of the priests of the various temples and what the priests could not eat, they sold. During the numerous feasts there was an inevitable glut in the meat market, and the price would drop accordingly. For many of the poor of the city (which certainly included at least some of the Christians) that was probably the only time they could afford to eat meat.  Furthermore, if a person didn’t ask the butcher, he or she would not know whether a particular piece of meat had been offered to an idol or not. None of the idols existed anyway, so why not enjoy some rarely affordable beef or lamb?

               In the context of a city like Corinth all of this made perfect sense.  But if reported  in Jerusalem, such a practice would sound like a trashing of the Jerusalem agreement.  Paul could have simply issued a ruling such as, “Barnabas and I agreed with the apostles in Jerusalem on this matter and I insist that our agreement be honored.  No Christian is allowed to eat meat offered to idols, and that’s final!”

               Instead of issuing a new law, Paul asks his reader to reflect on “knowledge” and “love.”  In the six lines of cameos 1-2 {8:1-3}, the words knowledge and knowing appear seven times with at least one occurrence in each line.  The words know and love occur together twice.  The last line in cameo 1 reads, “knowledge puffs up but love builds up” and cameo 2c affirms, “But if one loves God, one is known by him.”

               The two key words knowledge and love reappear in the hymn to love in 13:4.  Once again, Paul is quietly building up a list of negatives that appear when love is absent. In the process, he describes the inner working of “knowledge” on the one hand and “love” on the other.  Knowledge, by its very nature, can easily create pride and arrogance.  The one who has large amounts of knowledge can easily look down on those less informed. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p. 233

…The Corinthians who knew that idols did not exist were in grave danger of using that knowledge in a way that would tear down what Paul, with great effort, had built up. The issue of food offered to idols could easily split the church in Corinth and elsewhere into Jewish-background believers and Gentile-background believers….{Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p.234

               Paul’s context is easy to reconstruct. Temples served meals where the meat on offer had been sacrificed to one of the gods.  Even in private homes, extended family social occasions would involve meals where the “main course” was meat offered to idols.  Such meat was perhaps the only meat the family could afford. Paul presents the problem in Cameo 5{vs. 8:7}.  What about the people who were still frightened by the ever-present temples with their statues of “the gods”?  If they ate meat offered to them, were they not ingesting the god into their very lives?  “Isn’t that what happens at the celebration of the Holy Supper?” they could have asked. Or perhaps the “god” they no longer worshiped would make them sick if they ate “his meat” while refusing to worship him?  The “strong” in the community were likely insisting “these gods do not exist. This meat is ‘food for the stomach,’ and nothing more needs to be said.”  But,  what about the “weak”?

               In cameo 3 {vs. 8:4} Paul grants the validity of this argument as it was made by these “strong” believers. Idols do not exist. But here in cameo 5{vs. 8:7}, as an act of love, Paul urges his readers to refrain from opening the way back to idol worship for those who do not yet emotionally feel what their heads are telling them.  As G. G. Findlay has written, “Knowledge operating alone makes it an engine of destruction.” {“St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.”  The Expositor’s Greek Testament.  Edited by W. Robertson Nicoll.  Vol. 2. New York: George H. Doran, 1900., p. 839} {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}–ibid. p.239

{Blackmail?  How long the weak is going to remain weak to black mail the matured one that too based on their emotional feeling?  Where is the guarantee that they will limit only with food offered to idol worship and try to blackmail on many other areas to create problem to the matured one?  And what about the ‘gospel obligation’ on the part of the matured one who try to reach out their own people?  Above all, it is not because of some ‘gospel obligation’ on our part, but as our birth right that we won’t allow others to blackmail us regarding our rights as Hindus as God helped us to born in this community.  Of course any knowledge that creates pride and condescending others is a crime, but insistence to remain in ignorance is also not correct.  While the non-Jew new believer with clear understanding (knowledge) try to build up his community with social interaction—thereby accepting meal in which food offered to idol is served, the weak Jew or non-Jew new believer insist of remaining in ignorance and use it to blackmail the strong one based on sentiment.  This I call as prejudice.  Particularly the Jews, however concession shown to them, are not going to accommodate the social obligation of the non-Jews because of their religious prejudice towards the non-Jew’s religious/cultural/social views.  This is proved by the very life of Sevanand.  In stead of his constant effort to reach out them by going third mail at the cost of the non-Jew’s sentiment towards their culture and social view, he never succeed.  Here I don’t want to compare the same with the traditional Indian Christians and the adjustments that the new converts are forced to made to survive among them—though I am tempted to do.  My understanding is that ignorance can be corrected through proper teaching, but prejudice can never be removed as it often stems from racial pride.  Here I feel that Sevanand also failed.  However. he tried to become all things to all men, yet he remained a Jew at his core and this is also acknowledge by Bailey: see. p. 256-57, 261.  Of course he never had Jewish prejudice against the non-Jews but he allowed it among his own people giving too many concession either to get recognition for his seva among the non-Jew or try to win them for his mission.  But in the end he failed as he failed to address their prejudice and only tried to accommodate their sentiment.  Those who always use their sentiment will use the victim card to block mail others.–db ]

…It is a case of a person with a strong conscience who wants to force his ethical choices on others. On the other hand, there are those who walk their own path ignoring the havoc their choice will wreak in the body of Christ. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p.240

               Paul continues, “We are no worse off if we do not eat.” {8:8}  That is, it would have been easy for those who ate idol meat to boldly affirm, “There are no idols, so there is no problem!  We the strong can eat this meat. Doing so proves the strength of our faith.”  Those same people would naturally have looked down on the “weak” who were not strong enough to eat this good, cheap food.  No, replies Paul, the one who chooses to refrain is not worse off (i.e., weak in faith) and you who eat this meat are not better off (i.e., strong in faith).  The issue has to do with love.  You the “strong” can become a stumbling block for the “weak.”  Love must influence how you use your knowledge. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p.240

…The failure to love others in the debate over “food offered to idols” is not a little disagreement on a minor point of ethics. It is a sin against Christ, whose love was so great that he died to save. {Food Offered to Idols: Freedom and Responsibility. 1 Corinthians 8:1-13}—ibid. p. 241.

[if the strong is forcing his ethical choices on others—particularly on the weak, the weak       – through their ‘emotional feeling’- tries to blackmail the strong.  In that scenario, what should be done?  Educate the weak and make them strong.  And if they continue to want to remain in their weakness, then leave it to their choice and allow the strong move forward.—db]

               Paul first told his readers to accommodate to everyone and become “all things to all people.”  He then reflected on the Hebrew sacramental past, and his advice was “something to some people.”  That is, Christian sacraments have continuity with the Hebrew experience of the exodus. But their ethical responses to those experiences were inadequate.  Now Paul turns to the Gentile sacramental past that surrounded all of his readers.  He warns,

in a private home or in a temple-owned restaurant, eating meat offered to idols is not necessarily a problem. Joining in pagan/Gentile worship is very different!  Have nothing to do with it. In this case my judgment is—no identification is possible!  Our loyalty to Christ translates into “nothing for anyone.” {New Covenant Sacraments and Idolatry. No Identification. 1 Cor. 10:14-22}—ibid. p. 274

Paul …created a multicultural church, and he urges his readers to care for the interests of ”the other” (believer or nonbeliver), setting aside their own interests.

               The opening lines of each of these two cameos are related in a special way. Cameo 1 sets out general principles while cameo 7 offers applications of those principles.  We can almost hear the conversation between Paul and his readers. It is as if they are engaged in the following dialogue:

Paul       As a general principle (cameo 1 {10:23}) can say, “All things are lawful tome but they are not all helpful. Nor do all things build up.”

Paul’s readers     Can you give us a general sense as to how to apply these two principles?

Paul       Yes, I can (cameo 7 {10:32-33}).  Let us look at the two parts of what I have just said.

• Regarding being helpful, don’t offend Jews, Greeks or the church of God. You gain nothing by offending people. It makes them angry, and they become entrenched in their opposing views.  Giving offense is simply not helpful.
• As for building up, when you do not offend you have the opportunity to commend your message of salvation, and in the process build up the community at large. You need to also build up the believing community internally.  Work to build up, not tear down. (p. 287) […]

In cameo 7 Paul sets a high standard. He is engaged in evangelism and his theological goal is clear.  But his method is also clear.  The standard is: Give no offense to Jews, Greeks or to the church.  For him there will be no public attacks on the faith of others.  Critical analysis, yes, attacks—no!  While writing to Christians he does not hide the fact that the gods of the “the Gentiles” do not exist and that their worship brings them into fellowship with demons. As noted, archaeology has identified Greek shrines in Corinth dedicated to the worship of twelve different gods.  But there is no attack on any of these idols, their sacred books, their temples or their priests.  When lecturing on Mars Hill (Acts 17: 22-31) Paul found common ground between his message and respected Greek authors. In Paul’s ministry, tolerance, open-mindedness and respect flowed together with critical analysis and non-apologetic evangelism. To update Paul’s directive into the twenty-first century we could say, “Give no offense to Jews or to Muslims or to the church of God. Do not seek your own advantage, but theirs—and at the appropriate time, in a respectful and culturally sensitive way, bear witness to the Christian story without apology.” This directive is clear, yet Paul leaves the reader with a further question.

In the second essay Paul boldly instructed the Corinthians to dismiss the incestuous man. In this third essay he directs them to give “no offense to the church of God.”  How can these two texts be reconciled?  Was he not potentially offending at least a part of the church by urging the dismissal of the (p.288) offender…. It may be possible to combine these two texts by suggesting that what Paul means is, “Strive to avoid offending the conscience of anyone, and at the same time, maintain ethical standards within the body of Christ, even if that effort may require discipline in order to protect the spiritual health of the community and save the offender.”

               The second semantic envelope in this homily (cameos 2, 6) is also remarkable. The two matching cameos are seen together in figure 3.3(3).

2..          ²⁵ Eat whatever is sold in the meat market

                              Without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

²⁶ For “the earth is the Lord’s,                                    EAT

and everything in it.”                                                   ALL Is the Lord’s

_

6             ³¹ So, whether you eat or drink,

               or whatever you do,                                                     EAT

               do all to the glory of God.                                           In All—Glorify God

Figure 3.6(3). Cameos 2 and 6 (I Cor 10: 25-26, 31)

These two cameos unite around the topic of “eating and the divine.”  Cameo 2 tells the reader: All meat sold in the marketplace belongs to God, not to the idols, because the entire earth is the Lord’s. This affirmation must have been hugely liberating for Paul’s readers.  Imagine a new Greek Christian entering the meat market in Corinth with great inner turmoil and wondering, “If this meat was offered to Asclepius the god of health, it must belong to him.  And if I buy it and eat it, will Asclepius make me sick because I no longer worship him?”  “No,” answers Paul—“it all belongs to the one Lord who created all things” (cameo 2). Such fears are groundless. So if you eat it or do not eat it—give all glory to God alone (cameo 6) and do not be afraid. (p.289) {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. pp.287-89

               As is common the climax of the homily appears in the center (cameo 40, where love is prominent.)  Paul indirectly tells his readers, “Your rights and your freedom are not the only components in this discussion.  What about love?”  We do not know if the informant whisperingin the ear of the Christian guest is the unbelieving host showing consideration to his guest, or a fellow Christian who happens to be present at the banquet.  In either case, what should the Christian guest do when he or she is specifically informed at the banquet about the pagan origins of the meat?

To paraphrase Paul’s directive he seems to be telling his readers,

If you are invited to a meal in an unbeliever’s home and someone quietly informs you that the meat is “idol food,” out of your love for the informant, who is trying to be sensitive to what he thinks are your feelings, don’t eat the meat.  Your freedom should be tempered by love. {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. p. 290

               In the opening homily (8:1-13) of essay three, Paul asked that knowledge and love be kept together.  At the close of the essay he urges the uniting of (p.290) freedom and love.  Paul is again subtly preparing the reader for the hymn to love that will appear in chapter 13.

               The uniting of freedom and sensitivity/love here in cameo 4 {10:28} is connected to cameo1 {10:23} at the beginning and cameo 7 {10:32-33} at the end. Summarizing Paul’s opening cameo he insists that “all things are lawful,  but all are not helpful or “upbuilding”.    Why is this/  Because freedom must be marinated with love (came 4 {10:28}).  At the end of the homily in cameo 7 {10:32-33}Paul teaches: Give offense to no one, seek their advantage, not your own—that they may be saved. This reflects the love admonished in the center cameo. 

               The larger question is not, what does freedom assure me (cameos 3,5 {10:27, 29b, 30}?  But rather, what does love require of me (cameo 4 {10:28, 29a}? For Paul’s readers who were accustomed to ring composition, this climatic call for sensitivity/love was unambiguous and compelling.

               As noted earlier, for many contemporary readers the order is confusing.  We are conditioned to listening to a presentation that offers:

               On the one hand:

               At home (2) and at private banquets (3) give thanks, eat what you like (5) and give glory to God (6).

               But, (alla) on the other hand::

               If someone tells you, “This is idol meat,” for his sake do not eat the meat (4).

[..]

               This is how a Christian can live in a non-Christian society.  As noted, Paul’s theme song throughout the essay is “Freedom and Responsibility” That responsibility (cameo 4) takes on the color of love and sensitivity.

In summary, Paul has earlier discussed

1. What about idol meat served in temple-operated restaurants?  Paul’s answer is, It is acceptable if you really understand that the idols do not exist and as long as there is no one present who is still deeply unsettled about these so-called gods.
2. What about eating and drinking in an idol worship service?  Paul’s answer was, “Never!  Such eating is participation in the worship of demons.” (p.291)

In this text Paul considers two further questions. These are:

3. Can I buy this idol meat in the market and eat it at home?  Paul replies by saying, “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market” (cameo 2). The idols do not exist and the meat itself belongs to God—not to the idols.  The whole earth is his.
4. What about a dinner party in the home of one of my unbelieving friends?  Paul responds using language that is almost a direct quote from what Jesus told the seventy disciples when sent them out two by two.  Both Jesus (Lk 10:8) and Paul say, “Eat whatever is set before you” (cameo 3).  But if someone tells you, “This is idol meat’, out of love for the informant—don’t eat. {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. pp.291-92

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Prasad Problem Part Three

One general complaint about us (Hindu bhaktas) of the Lord is that we neither go and participate in the Christian Service happening in the church nor encourage Hindu bhaktas to do the same or we encourage (or allow) other Christians to come and participate in our pujas.  This is only half truth.  We never discriminate anyone to come and ‘PARTICIPATE’ in our pujas—Hindus, Muslims, Christians, atheist or anyone.  But we request them not to come just to ‘observe’ our puja and worship, particularly for the Christians to do some study for their research about us.  But when we were invited to the church to the Church Service most of the time we are encouraged only to ‘OBSERVE’ their SERVICE than to participate in it.

When we are invited to the Church ‘SERVICE’ most of the time we remain mere ‘OBSERVERS’ of the CHRISTIAN SERVICE TH than actually PARTICIPATE in the worship?  The first reason is that we cannot follow most of their liturgical service.  The next is the format which remain completely alien to us which never appeal to our spirit.  But this can be excused as it is their Christian prerogative what format they should use to conduct their CHRUCH SERVICE.  Then for us it looks more a kind of ‘SERVICE’ than actual worship as we are familiar with our home and community.

But next one is more crucial one. If the Christians expect us join their service will they or their other church members and even the priest will allow us to take part in the COMMUNION also?  I don’t need to further elaborate about it.  In several churches where one denominational member is not allowed to participate in the COMMUNION, where comes the question of a Hindu bhakta of the Lord participating in it.  At the same time I respect their right not to allow others who do not share with their kind of faith expression or doctrine.  Even Hindu temples openly display the board that ‘non-Hindus are not allowed’ inside the temple!  Every religion has the right to have exclusivism when it comes to their faith and rituals. But why should we go merely to OBSERVE what they are doing inside the church?  But I should recognize that there are several churches which might allow other denominational members also to take part in their communion service and in few Catholic church they share the communion to everyone without enquiring about their faith. But I think this will happen only in large churches and not in small congregation where both the priest and the lay members know each other well.

Now take our case.  We never discriminate anyone because of their faith. Yes even if a Hindu who does not have faith in the Lord participate in our pujas we never say no to them (in fact we invite them as several our own family members participate in it) but also distribute the maha-prasad to them. For us it is remembering the saving grace of God for others it is the common grace of God.  Christians have every right to object our practice.  But why should we heed them?  Whether we stand or fall, it is between us and the Lord.  We never invite or allow others to ‘observe’ our worship but actually participate in it.

Here it is important to note one major concept of sharing the Prasad of a deity with others. Already I briefly mentioned about it that every Hindu is under an obligation to share the grace of god with others.  While sharing a Hindu will never question about your faith in a temple premises or outside it after the puja.  But as I also mentioned here also is a subtle difference.  Because whole distributing Prasad (at random) she won’t inquire about others’ faith, but while taking the same Prasad to her relatives, neighbors and friends she won’t share it with those with whom she is not in good terms and cordial relationship.  Even in this spiritual side there is the social aspect in Hindu ritual about which Babb says:

Thus, the joint family eats from the same hearth. When, in the natural course of events, the joint family splits, new hearths are built. Local caste-mates may eat together and sometimes do so as a group on festival occasions. If an individual breaks an important rule of his caste, he is not allowed these commensal privileges; and reacceptance is sometimes symbolized by a dinner in which the local membership of the caste partakes, as a group, of food from the offender’s hand, after which he is once mmore a member of the commensal circle.

            From these implications of commensality, it is evident that the distribution of Prasad at the conclusion of ritual sequences is an act that carries a potential sociological meaning. In the context of commensal restrictions operating in Chhattisgarhi society, the sharing of Prasad in ritual can be construed as a symbolic statement of linkage between the participants—between members of a family, between friends, between co-residents of a village, or whatever….(p.58)

…As it is not always convenient for everyone to be physically present at the pujas, which occur every nnight in conjunction with the festival, boys carrying Prasad are sent around to each house. It was explained that even if one is not present at the ritual itself, Prasad should be taken ‘ “It’s a neighborhood function,” one informant explained, :and everyone in the neighborhood must take Prasad.”

            It is clear, ten, that while Prasad is food, it is in no sense ordinary food. Normally, one may reject or accept food as inclination dictates within the framework of everyday restrictions.  In the ritual context, however, the refusal of food carries a different meaning. For in refusing Prasad one would not merely be rejecting the other participants, but one would be rejecting, in effect, the deity to whom the food had been offered.  Thus, in ritual the principles of commensality operate in an extraordinary context.[emphasis added]—pp. 58-59

Of course it is well known, in our context that while a Hindu distribute Prasad to her Christian friend or neighbor, she knows very well that her Christian friend or neighbor receives it because they (friend or neighbor) accepted her deity.  In our context the refusal to receive it a refusal of rejecting her friendship about which already we have seen.  Of course already we have seen (in Notes) about receiving the Prasad but not eating it by the followers of one sect while receiving it from another sect member.  But this is strictly followed in more conservative sects and not among common Hindus.  Both a Normal Hindu and Nominal Christian has no issue with Prasad.  So keeping our context in evangelical approach, even when one openly say to her Hindu friend or neighbor when she shares the Prasad of her deity that her faith in the Lord won’t permit to receive it, the Hindu friend or neighbor magnanimously will respect your faith and won’t insist upon giving it further. 

But once invited your Hindu friends and neighbors for your Christian Service and then not allowing them to participate in your communion will send a wrong message.  Even in the so called contextual ministry carried by some Christian groups this complicates their ‘witness’ about the Lord as the following real incident which happened in my life will highlight:

One time when I was in West Bengal with Anil Dev in his village, he arranged one satsangh in which both bhaktas and many Hindus participated.  At the end, when we celebrated maha prasad, he and his friends announced in Bengali that only those who had received deeksha could receive prasad.  Then one young man who had not yet received deeksha began to challenge them by asking, how can they stop others from receiving ‘prasad’.  Because what ‘communion’ conveys to an average Hindu— is that they are receiving god’s grace.

Then a big debate and discussion ensued.  They were debating in Bengali, so I could not understand every point, but I followed the discussion.  However, they could not reach a conclusion because the young man did not accept their explanation and he continued to challenge whether they could stop him or others from receiving ‘prasad’.  They then turned to me for a decision.  Many understood Hindi (as I was sharing in Hindi which was translated to Bengali), I asked that young man, ‘Do you understand from the discussion that you had with the others what it means to receive this maha prasad?’  And he said, ‘yes’.  Then to be sure that it was clear to him I asked, ‘Do you mean to confirm that you have decided to follow the Lord Muktinath as your god and savior?’  For this, he also said, ‘yes’.  Then I turned to the bhaktas and said, ‘Now that he has openly confessed his faith in the Lord before his friends and other relatives who have not yet received deeksha, do you think that after we leave, he can deny that he openly confessed his faith in the Lord?’  They said, ‘No’.  I didn’t want to take any chance of creating any kind of confusion or misunderstanding among the bhaktas, so again I asked them, ‘Suppose if he has done this as a joke or to mock us and our worship and faith, by confessing his faith in the Lord and tomorrow makes a joke of it, then who is responsible for his act?  They said in one voice, ‘He himself’. 

Then I said to the young man and also to all those who participated, ‘I don’t know the intention of this young man’s challenge this evening.  But god alone knows his heart and the sincerity of his confession.  Even if he has done it as a joke or to mock the Lord or us, then it is left with him and god, so I have no objection in giving “maha prasad” to him.’  And I also told the young man that before he comes forward to receive ‘maha prasad’ I would give him a few minutes to think and make his decision because he cannot escape criticism, condemnation and mockery from his family and community for his act—in both ways.  That is, if he is sincerely received as a bhakta, then he has to acknowledge it before others, as he has to live with his family and community.  Or if he has done it as a joke, the same people will question and doubt his integrity and honesty on such religious things, particularly related with rituals.  Hindus in general never take rituals and things related with it very lightly.

Hindus never take rituals very lightly though they often do it with a spirit of familiarity.  Particularly  regarding Prasad we should understand that it is not a common communal meal or social feast in which some kind of caste hierarchy norms are followed.  Not everyone will be invited or allowed to eat in a feast either in a home or community.  Though there came lots of change in it, still in some restricted feasts strict caste hierarchy is followed which we need not elaborate.  But the main difference and context regarding Prasad is that while we receive we receive it as the left-over food of that particular deity what is known as jutha in Hindi.  Otherwise it won’t be Prasad.@@@

Another question about Converts continues to live with their pagan partners.  Both LTJ and Paul is very clear in it and too agree with them.  But what I cannot understand is if the children born are cleansed because of the faith of one partner and can continue to have ‘intimate’ fellowship all through their life, how taking the Prasad of Hindu deity is going to contaminate you?  Take for example of a couple whom I know exist very well.  The wife is a ‘believer’ but not the husband. But husband has no problem with his wife’s faith. Now the children are born and they all grown up as typical Hindu as the husband told his wife not ‘impose’ her faith on them.  As her faith cleansed them already, who are they now?  Are they ‘believers’?  Definitely the Christians will say ‘no’. Then what is ‘cleansing business’ has done to them?  What actually the cleansing is?  I only ask the question not knowing the answer.  Now if a unbelieving life partner can live with her believing partner, then why not a Hindu cannot join us to worship the Lord even in participating in the maha-prasad!  Again I insist that Christians have every right not to allow others who do not share in their faith or doctrine.  Paul also clearly warns the believer not to participate in the pagan rituals. But is there any reference or even indirect hint that a non-believer should not be allowed to participate in the Christian worship including participating in Communion?  I am only asking a question here. Of course no Christian will stop any Hindu to come join in their Church Service but only they will stop them participating in the Communion. This I encountered even in my personal life. When I went to a Church in Trichy (in Nandi Koil street) to meet another Christian who came to that service, I too joined in the line to receive the Communion. But immediately I was stopped by them and told not to join in the queue. Then I left not even meeting that Christian.

@@@

Not accepting the Prasad of another sampradaya is quite common in Hinduism also.

When a Hindu gives Prasad of any deity a Christian (particularly an evangelical) is expected to refuse to accept it.  Sri LTJ says that if a Hindu gives a laddu by saying that it is a good sweet accept it with thanks.  But if she says that it is the Prasad of Balaji then don’t accept because of her conscious that worship of Balaji is OK.

This is correct from their evangelical perspective and we have to agree with it.  But they view the attitude of that Hindu (friend or relative or neighbor who is in good terms with you alone will give you that laddu) from their own (doctrinal) perspective.  They refuse to see it from the Hindu point of view:

10. When a Hindu devotee gives any Prasad of any deity, she is very clear in her conscious that when you accept it, she does not expect you to compromise with your faith in your god.  She never expects or will even accept that by accepting it you are even agreeing with her faith.  She knows that you are not ‘ok’ with her faith in her god.  She also does not think that by accepting the Prasad you are giving up your faith in your god and now become a bhakta of Balaji. And even if you want to give up your faith in your god and want to follow her deity, most of the time she will say ‘no’ to it. She will say, ‘your god is good for you. My god is good for me.  So you need not give up your faith in your god and began to worship my god. ‘ At the same time she will be pleased that if you insist of following your god by giving up your faith in the Lord.
11. When she is very clear in her conscious then why she wants to give that Prasad to you?  Because she is your friend. And when you accept it, you are acknowledging her love for you and not her faith.  A Hindu who is not in good terms with anyone, particularly to an enemy will never share the Prasad.  Even because of her conscious if you say ‘no’ she will magnanimously say ‘ok’ and will never insist. But the question is have you ever told that you are not accepting that Prasad only because of ‘HER CONSCIOUS’ and not because of ‘YOUR CONSCIOUS’?  If you say, what would be her response?  She will definitely say that, ‘I am clear in my conscious. I don’t want you to agree with my faith, or acknowledge my god or give up your faith or even expect you to compromise your faith.’  But most of the time the evangelicals never give any explanation to their Hindu friends particularly about their so called ‘CONSCIOUS’ but will politely say that their ‘OUR FAITH WON’T ALLOW US TO ACCEPT THE PRASAD OF OTHER GODS’.  And a sincere Hindu respecting your stand for your faith will happily acknowledge such faith and won’t insist of giving any Prasad.  When a Hindu distributes Prasad of her deity, she never asks about your faith or even thinks about it. She is under an obligation to share the ‘grace’ (Prasad) of her deity with others and cannot take back all of them with her.  Before distributing her Prasad she won’t even ask what your faith is or which religion you belongs. Her conscious is very clear—share the grace of god with others.
12. But the question is, is it because of your faith that you refuse to receive the prasad?  Or fear that devil will attack you if you accept the Prasad?  Or God will punish you as you have compromised your faith by accepting the Prasad from a Hindu?  If you say ‘no’ to the Prasad for any of these reasons, then you have to question such kind of faith in the Lord. EVEN YOU HAVE TO QUESTION THIS KIND OF GOD!  If your god does not have power to protect you from the attack of the devil as you have taken Prasad, then who is more powerful?  Or if your god is going to punish you because you took Prasad and compromised with your faith, then how much more he or she has to punish the way you are compromising your faith in all other areas of your life?  If nothing is going to separate you from the Love of god, then why a small laddu from Balaji will separate you from the same love?
13. Now think about such a scenario.  After refusing to accept her Prasad, when you invite her to come to your church or Christmas Party what would be her reaction and response.  Most of the time she will never say that I won’t come as you refuse to accept the Prasad which I gave.  She will accept the invitation for two reasons: to honor you and celebrate your friendship and also to enjoy good Christmas cakes—which she won’t normally get other times.  Whatever might be your CONSCIOUS or even INTENSION—which a discerning Hindu knows very well, she will accept the invitation.  She might even know your intension behind that invention—to share the gospel!  Hindus are not that much naïve as you think.
14. This leads to the next question of (spiritual) ethics.  When you invite any of your Hindu friends or acquaintance for any Christmas party or even for a meal or cup of tea only with a HIDDEN AGENDA OF SHARING THE GOSPEL then how far that is ethically correct?  You try to EXPLOIT your friendship for your vested interest and not honoring and celebrating the friendship just for the sake of it.  Even your friendship is Pseudo one.  Your friend is mere an ‘object’ or ‘target’ for you.  You may hide it behind your evangelical call and burden by saying that you are expected to share the good news in both ‘season and out of season’.  And you have every right to it.  Then why not honestly and openly tell your Hindu friend or acquaintance that you have invited her for the party or meal or tea only to ‘share the gospel’ to her?  Why not you give her a choice to decide but try to exploit her relationship with you for your Agenda. This is what the Missionaries have done in the past.  When they distributed food material for famine hit people, before giving it, they ‘COMPELLED THEM TO SIT AND LISTEN THEIR PREACHING’.  This is OUTRIGHT HUMAN RIGHT VIOLATION.  Even today in most of the Mission Hospitals in the OPD section, the patients and their relatives (who brought them for treatment) are ‘FORCED TO LISTEN THE GOSPEL’ preached by the PAID evangelist.  Can you deny this?  If love and service is your real motive then do it silently not IMPOSING YOUR FAITH ON THEM. @@@
15. My  next point is the so called ‘CONSCIOUS’ of the Hindu friend or neighbor.  From where they get this point?  Again from Paul’s teaching in Corinthians.  But what is the context there?  The first context is in I Cor. 8: 9-13.  As LTJ has clearly says this context is about eating the beef which is served in temple premises in Corinthian city where free beef meal is available in the temple.  If my understanding is correct here Paul is not talking about ‘buying’ the meat sold in the market which is coming from the temple sacrifice. So the buyer and seller know from it is coming.  But here the context is taking a free meal served in the temple premises with beef briyani.  Just for the sake of the conscious of the weak brother/sister resist your temptation for a free briyani served in the temple.  But I will even object such suggestion by Paul.  Just stretch your imagination a bit and bring to the Indian context.  We know that free meal is served in (many) Hindu temples.  Who will go and eat there?  Only the Hindus or in our context a Hindu bhakta of the Lord who knows very well that idol is nothing and every good is a gift from God (I Cor. 8: 4-6).  Now another Hindu bhakta see it.  And she is weak in her faith.  And if she too is tempted to eat that free temple meal, how the first Hindu bhakta should respond?  If I were there, I will ask that weak brother to join and enjoy the meal. Then I will, denying a nap after a good meal will give proper teaching to that weak brother about what Paul says in I Cor. 8: 4-6.  Above all being a fellow Hindu, he already knows about the temple free meal which he too enjoyed in the past.  The next scenario of the weak brother is a traditional Christian from his church.  And here the question is what to do because of the weakness of that traditional Christian from the same church?  If I were there I will tell him to come out from his weakness and study the Word of God properly than merely listening to the three point regular sermon from the Pulpit week after week and become strong in his faith and conscious.  Even after few generations as a Christian if that Christian refused to listen or understand, then I will allow him to continue to remain in his weakness.  Because even after several generation if he cannot become strong both in his faith and conscious someone one like me a recent ‘convert’ can never help him to become strong.  Let him continue to live in his weakness and use it as a victim card.  But I won’t budge to it. Remember this context of ‘conscious’ about eating a temple meal should not be the criteria to refuse to receive the Prasad from your Hindu friend or neighbor.
16. The next scenario is in I Cor. 10: 19 to 30, specifically in verse 28.  Here the context is not about giving a temple Prasad (Balaji Laddu in our case) but invited for a meal by a host.  Before giving my view on this let us listen what Bailey,{ Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural studies in 1 Corinthians, Downers Grove, Illinois, IVP Academic,} Middle Eastern Scholar says about it. Though it is bit log, still it is worth to read as it is.  First I will quote only the relevant for our discussion. Rest I will give in the foot notes@:

…Paul created a multicultural church, and he urges his readers to care for the interests of ”the other” (believer or nonbeliver), setting aside their own interests.

            The opening lines of each of these two cameos are related in a special way. Cameo 1 sets out general principles while cameo 7 offers applications of those principles.  We can almost hear the conversation between Paul and his readers. It is as if they are engaged in the following dialogue:

Paul     As a general principle (cameo 1 {10:23}) can say, “All things are lawful tome but they are not all helpful. Nor do all things build up.”

Paul’s readers   Can you give us a general sense as to how to apply these two principles?

Paul     Yes, I can (cameo 7 {10:32-33}).  Let us look at the two parts of what I have just said.

• Regarding being helpful, don’t offend Jews, Greeks or the church of God. You gain nothing by offending people. It makes them angry, and they become entrenched in their opposing views.  Giving offense is simply not helpful.
• As for building up, when you do not offend you have the opportunity to commend your message of salvation, and in the process build up the community at large. You need to also build up the believing community internally.  Work to build up, not tear down. (p. 287) […]

In cameo 7 Paul sets a high standard. He is engaged in evangelism and his theological goal is clear.  But his method is also clear.  The standard is: Give no offense to Jews, Greeks or to the church.  For him there will be no public attacks on the faith of others.  Critical analysis, yes, attacks—no!  While writing to Christians he does not hide the fact that the gods of the “the Gentiles” do not exist and that their worship brings them into fellowship with demons. As noted, archaeology has identified Greek shrines in Corinth dedicated to the worship of twelve different gods.  But there is no attack on any of these idols, their sacred books, their temples or their priests.  When lecturing on Mars Hill (Acts 17: 22-31) Paul found common ground between his message and respected Greek authors. In Paul’s ministry, tolerance, open-mindedness and respect flowed together with critical analysis and non-apologetic evangelism. To update Paul’s directive into the twenty-first century we could say, “Give no offense to Jews or to Muslims or to the church of God. Do not seek your own advantage, but theirs—and at the appropriate time, in a respectful and culturally sensitive way, bear witness to the Christian story without apology.” This directive is clear, yet Paul leaves the reader with a further question.

In the second essay Paul boldly instructed the Corinthians to dismiss the incestuous man. In this third essay he directs them to give “no offense to the church of God.”  How can these two texts be reconciled?  Was he not potentially offending at least a part of the church by urging the dismissal of the (p.288) offender…. It may be possible to combine these two texts by suggesting that what Paul means is, “Strive to avoid offending the conscience of anyone, and at the same time, maintain ethical standards within the body of Christ, even if that effort may require discipline in order to protect the spiritual health of the community and save the offender.”

            The second semantic envelope in this homily (cameos 2, 6) is also remarkable. The two matching cameos are seen together in figure 3.3(3).

2..        ²⁵ Eat whatever is sold in the meat market

                        Without raising any question on the ground of conscience.

²⁶ For “the earth is the Lord’s,                            EAT

and everything in it.”                                         ALL Is the Lord’s

_

6          ³¹ So, whether you eat or drink,

            or whatever you do,                                           EAT

            do all to the glory of God.                                  In All—Glorify God

Figure 3.6(3). Cameos 2 and 6 (I Cor 10: 25-26, 31)

These two cameos unite around the topic of “eating and the divine.”  Cameo 2 tells the reader: All meat sold in the marketplace belongs to God, not to the idols, because the entire earth is the Lord’s. This affirmation must have been hugely liberating for Paul’s readers.  Imagine a new Greek Christian entering the meat market in Corinth with great inner turmoil and wondering, “If this meat was offered to Asclepius the god of health, it must belong to him.  And if I buy it and eat it, will Asclepius make me sick because I no longer worship him?”  “No,” answers Paul—“it all belongs to the one Lord who created all things” (cameo 2). Such fears are groundless. So if you eat it or do not eat it—give all glory to God alone (cameo 6) and do not be afraid. (p.289) {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. pp.287-89

            As is common the climax of the homily appears in the center (cameo 40, where love is prominent.)  Paul indirectly tells his readers, “Your rights and your freedom are not the only components in this discussion.  What about love?”  We do not know if the informant whisperingin the ear of the Christian guest is the unbelieving host showing consideration to his guest, or a fellow Christian who happens to be present at the banquet.  In either case, what should the Christian guest do when he or she is specifically informed at the banquet about the pagan origins of the meat?[emphasis added by DB]

To paraphrase Paul’s directive he seems to be telling his readers,

If you are invited to a meal in an unbeliever’s home and someone quietly informs you that the meat is “idol food,” out of your love for the informant, who is trying to be sensitive to what he thinks are your feelings, don’t eat the meat.  Your freedom should be tempered by love. {Food Offered to Idols.  Freedom and Responsibility (A Final Word). 1 Cor. 10:23-11:1.}—ibid. p. 290

I don’t need to add many more words to explain further as Bailey presented very clear picture.  But let me begin with the question here. This is what Bailey says, ‘We do not know if the informant whisperingin the ear of the Christian guest is the unbelieving host showing consideration to his guest, or a fellow Christian who happens to be present at the banquet.’

So we actually don’t know who is the informant who has whispered about the meat? Now my question to Bailey keeping only Indian context is: what is the purpose of INVITING A GUEST  for a meal?  If you tell something or behave in certain way which will stop him in participating in the meal it is not only considered as a showing disrespect to the guest but also a sin which will wipe out all the merit of the host.  This we can read from the story of Nachiketas in Katha Upanishad where Yama come forward to give three boons to Nachiketas as he stayed three nights in his house without food served to him as Yama was not in the house$.  Leave the Upananishad even an ordinary Indian knows that a guest must be respected and treated well. The main purpose of inviting the guest is to feed him well.  Then why the host or someone else should whisper on the ear of the guest to warn him about the meat!  Does he not know that this will prevent him taking the meal?  In an ordinary home the parents will warn their children and other members to behave properly with the host. Particularly when food is served, no one should tell or talk anything which will irritate the host or the family member who is eating will stop and get up in the middle.  In fact this will bring humiliation to the host more than to the guest.  When the father rebukes the child or children on anything while she or they eat, the mother will rebuke the husband not to ‘scold’ while they are eating.  And which host, even a Christian host will whisper on the ear of the guest about the origin of the meat which will prevent the guest to eat the meal which in the end will become an embarrassing situation for the host?  And why not inform the guest before the sending the invitation about the origin of the meat for him decide about accepting the invitatioin?

Next is that in the Corinthian context—both the guest and host know from where the meat is coming.  So there is no need to warn the guest about it.  Even if the informant is not the host but someone else who is invited for the banquet, the guest already knows about the origin of the meat.  Most of the meat sold in the market in Corinthians is coming from the temple sacrifice.  Even if we take for granted, that considering the ‘conscious’ of the guest the host bought it from other place, which might be very expensive, then what is the need to warn about it to the guest. In case if the informant is not the host but another person also invited for the banquet, who actually does not know that the host bought the meat from other place and still warns the guest about it by ‘WHISPERING’ before checking with the host, what any sensible guest will do?  He will either think that this informant is a trouble maker or came only to humiliate the host.

So how can we make any remark based on such imagination? So let me also imagination.  The guest is a recent convert who become ‘Sam’ from ‘Shyam’ and the host is his close friend or relative still a pagan known as Ram.  But Ram’s wife is famous for making delicious briyani which everyone likes.  But the previous night Ram and his wife had a small quarrel.  So in order to take revenge on her husband, she prepared tastier briyani but very limited one. When Ram asked about it, she told that she is run out of other masalas so she cannot make more than that and promised that another day she will make still tastier briyani for him, but at present let them feed only to the guest.  But both Shyam and Ram were close friends.  So when Ram’s wife before serve the briyani told Sam that Ram’s has stomach problem therefore he cannot eat that briyani today.  Knowing this trap, when she went to the kitchen Ram whispered about the origin of the meat to Sam thinking that this will stop him taking that briyani alone which he can take later.  But knowing his trick, Sam with a smile says to Ram, ‘arye yar.  I know about the quarrel between you and your wife.  Don’t try to cheat me.  We know both well from where the meat is coming.  So your whisper won’t work and I thought of requesting your wife to serve a bit not to disappoint you. But now I am going to join her and we both won’t allow you to taste even a spoon of briyani’. Then both of them were laughing and bringing the briyani Ram’s wife also laughed and showed some mercy to her husband by giving his share.

The next one is joining the pagan worship.  Here the context is not receiving Prasad from your Hindu friend or accepting invitation for a meal from your host, but voluntarily and consciously participating in the idol worship having some faith in it.  If a ‘convert’ or ‘Hindu bhakta of the Lord’ or even a traditional Christian delibrately make a choice to participate in an idol worship with an intension to receive the blessing from that deity then we need to question his bhakti in the Lord.  But it is a fact that not only new converts and several Hindu bhaktas but even traditional Christian do this.  So we have no two opinion in opposing such conflicting faith.  But what if a Hindu bhakta who is living with his family is invited to a family puja or visit to the temple of family deity (kula devata)?  If his family members already know about his bhakti in the Lord, by refuse to participate the Hindu bhakta is not going to take any stand for the Lord for his faith.  They already know that he is now worshiping only Muktinath.  But he participates in the ritual and puja to show solidarity with the family as a member of the family.  In case if his family members do not know about his faith, still by refusing to join he is not going to take any stand for the Lord.  His absence will become more problem and questioned by all.  But his presence will be ignored as he too will be one among the crowd and no one is going to watch whether he is sincerely and honestly participate in the puja and take part in all the ritual.  Even if sincerely takes part or just ignore some of them, nobody is going to mind about it.  Because in several such family pujas or rituals, we can see that several members of the family will often walk out to talk with someone on phone or to receive others or busy in some other work. What is important and required is his presence. 

Now what about a ‘Convert’ or a ‘traditional Christian’ for some reason forced to participate in such pujas (like Ayuda puja [vishvakarma puja] in the office during Navaratri) or inauguration of an office or company etc.  Others know about his faith.  Even if he actively participate in the puja and joins in the ritual and finally even receive the Prasad, no one is going to think that now he gave up his Christian faith and become a Hindu. 

Here I stop. I will give the rest of Bailey’s note with my comments within the text in [] in red color.  I have written a paper on ‘Problem with Prasad’. It needs to be edited properly.  But still I can share with you if you want to read it also.

On Redemption:

Not only LTJ but several sincere and serious evangelicals who are very sensitive to culture issues, often talk about ‘redeeming’ the certain culture and tradition for the Lord (in our country).  But not knowing proper English, still I cannot what this ‘redemption’ actually is?  If every good and best things in my culture and tradition is either my creation as I am created in the Image of God or gift from God—like coconut, oil lamp, etc. etc., what is there to be redeemed and redeemed from whom?  Are they belong to the ‘devil’ so that I need to now redeem and clense so that I can use to ‘GLORIFY’ the Lord!  They are already belong to me!  So from whom I should redeem it and why even such thought should come to me.  This is the problem with the evangelicals.  They view everything from their doctrinal point of view and superimpose on us. And any naïve ‘convert’ of Hindu bhakta then think that it is correct.  I will use what already belongs to me.  Others have no right to question about—even Hindu fundamentalists.  As a Hindu bhakta of the Lord I have my right over everything that belongs to my culture and tradition. At the same time I have to warn that in the name of ‘contextualization’ and ‘inculturalization’ Christian have no right to selectively use our symbols and other religious traditions that will  serve their purpose, like displaying the symbols of Hindu deities in the window grills in their church happened in the past in a Catholic church in Bangalore, which was later removed as the Hindus objected to it.  They are correct to object to such display of our deities and symbols as mere fetish or decorative pieces.  As the Hindus then argued, if you want to keep our deities keep it along with the cross on your alter or remove it.  That is why I never like to use the emblem of ‘OM’ anywhere in our puja however we chant OM in our puja.

Regarding Rethinking people warning the Hindus not to go to the church or participate in their worship.  When you invite any Hindu or a Hindu bhakta of the Lord to your church to join the WORSHIP, do you want her to remain mere ‘OBSERVER’ or actually PARTICIPATE in the worship? If you expect her to PARTICIPATE will you or your other church members and even the priest will allow her take part in the COMMUNION also?  I don’t need to further elaborate about it.  In several churches where one denominational member is not allowed to participate in the COMMUNION, where comes the question of a Hindu bhakta of the Lord participating in it.  At the same time I respect their right not to allow others who do not share with their kind of faith expression or doctrine.  The unbrotherly brothren will never allow others even to participate in their service.  Then why should I go merely to OBSERVE what you are doing? 

Now take our case.  We never discriminate anyone because of their faith. Yes even if a Hindu who does not have faith in the Lord participate in our pujas we never say no to them (in fact we invite them as several our own family members participate in it) but also distribute the maha-prasad to them. For us it is remembering the saving grace of God for others it is the common grace of God.  Christians have every right to object our practice.  But why should we heed them?  Whether we stand or fall, it is between us and the Lord.

Another question about Converts continue to live with their pagan partners.  Both LTJ and Paul is very clear in it and too agree with them.  But what I cannot understand is if the children born are cleansed because of the faith of one partner and can continue to have ‘intimate’ fellowship all through their life, how taking the Prasad of Hindu deity is going to contaminate you?  Take for example of a couple whom I know exist very well.  The wife is a ‘believer’ but not the husband. But husband has no problem with his wife’s faith. Now the children are born and they all grown up as typical Hindu as the husband told his wife not ‘impose’ her faith on them.  As her faith cleansed them already, who are they now?  Are they ‘believers’?  Definitely the Christians will say ‘no’. Then what is ‘cleansing business’ has done to them?  What actually the cleansing is?  I only ask the question not knowing the answer. 

Rest I agree with LTJ annan. Salvation is not going to heaven but the Lord coming back again to continue his Kingdom which he already established her on earth—where all our cultural and traditional values, arts, music etc, (including my cross stitch work) will continue to remain.  Muktiveda celebrate MATERIALITY which is a reality.  The concept of MAYA is completely alien to Muktiveda.  Let us celebrate what god has given to us allowing us to CREATE as we are CREATED IN HIS IMAGE.

Problem with Prasad

Using Indian (Hindu) terms, symbols and concepts in exercising our bhakti in the Lord is more complicated one considering various aspects related to those terms—like culture, religious and social.  Particularly when Sanskrit words are used we should be very careful when we give any kind of theological interpretation without knowing the original meaning and the context.  In general many Sanskrit words (like Yoga, Sankhya etc.) gained new meaning transcending from its original meaning.  Prasad is one such term.

Prasad means grace.  But in Hinduism it gained a new meaning for the ‘material’ which is received back from the deity as its grace.¹ In general when Hindus use it, they never think that they are using it as a symbol for the grace of god but receiving literally the transmitted blessing of that particular deity.² This concept is stretched even to several items which a pilgrim brings back after visiting a pilgrim center, temple or abode of her guru etc.

For example most of the South Indians visiting Varanasi will bring a black thread known as ‘Kasik kayiru’ (Tamil).  This they will buy from the shop. But when they distribute it to their relatives, friends and neighbor, then it become prasad.  There is a humor side also in this.  Tiruppathi is famous for its laddu. Even the atheist would like to eat it.  But there is ration for this at Tiruppathi.  Each devotee will get only one laddu.  But they have to distribute this prasad to so many.  There are many local shops come to their help.  So pilgrims will buy lots of these local laddus from the sweet shops.  But the will keep the ‘temple’ prasad for their immediate family and distribute the ‘shop prasad’ to others.  If their relatives, friends and neighbors receive a full laddu, then they know that that laddu is from the shop and not from the temple. But it doesn’t matter for them, as it came from Tirupathi, then it is prasad to them.

One criticism that could be leveled against us for using this term Prasad for celebrating ‘communion’ service is that we are using it merely as a symbol as if it not understanding transmitted grace of god as understood in the Hindu context.  One way this criticism is correct.  But it comes out because of the misunderstanding the very act of conducting Maha–Prasad by us and the word.  This becomes more complicated when Roman Catholics use the same word for Eucharist because of their theology of ‘transubstantiation’ where the ‘materials’ (wafer and wine) used in Communion literally become the very body and blood of the Lord.  But most of the Hindu bhaktas, who know this issue, try to explain that they use it symbolically remembering what the Lord has done to differentiate the Catholic concept of transubstantiation.

But I think this is easily said than understood considering various theology behind ‘communion’ service in Christianity. As one pointed out, ‘one of the questions from a Christian theology standpoint is, what happens with communion? Does the physical material bring Christ’s presence and blessing, even one important for salvation (more Roman Catholic)? Is the material symbolic but the action brings the “spiritual” presence of Christ that nourishes the believers (Reformed)? Or is everything (material and action) symbolic – not conveying Christ’s presence or blessing in any special way but reminding us of his death and resurrection and his constant presence and blessing (more Evangelical)? I am not saying the Maha Prasad of Hindu bhaktas does or has to fit into any of these categories, but I bring them up as examples of what “symbolic” could mean in communion.’³

My understanding as a Hindu bhakta of the Lord is this: Our worship of the Lord is not symbolic.  What the Lord has done historically through his sacrifice is not symbolic.  The grace that we receive is not symbolic.  We use the local materials ‘remembering’ the grace of God through the sacrificial act of the Lord.  At the same time in our celebration of ‘Maha–Prasad’ we never discriminate between those who received deeksha (baptism) and those who not.  We teach the bhaktas of the Lord that when we receive ‘Maha–Prasad’ we remember the ‘saving grace of god’ and when we allow others to receive it remains as the ‘common grace of god’ as the word ‘prasad’ means grace.  So our celebration of ‘Maha–Prasad’ as Hindu bhaktas won’t neatly fit into any of the Christian theological categories.⁴

Though the ‘materials’ which we use in Maha Prasad might remain symbol, still the ritual act which we perform or known as ‘performative act’ might lead us to think that when any ritual is performed with right formula, with right mantra with right materials will automatically transform the power or grace of god is the common notion in Hindu rituals.  That is why in Vedic ritual more than the deities, the priests are very important.  Because a yajna correctly performed by them will automatically bring its result even making the deities to confer their blessing.⁵ But we never super impose such view on Maha–Prasad.  At the same time we think that god responds to our actions done in faith is part of our bhakti theology.

Here the dilemma for us is that not going to one extreme of treating everything symbolic or rituals as mechanic.  According to my understanding God never ignore the reality of material needs in our life. 

One time one Australian missionary in a conference held back in late 1990s told that the baptism and communion is symbolic.  In his Indian group, they also insist of not even conducting deeksha (baptism) or Maha–Prasad (communion) for the bhaktas in their fellowships.  According to them all these are mere symbolic rituals and we need not use them as we integrate its meaning in spirit—viz., they are spiritual reality therefore no need for physical expression. Then I asked him whether the physical death of the Lord on the Cross is real or symbolic?  Is our salvation (mukti) is real or symbolic?

I think the dry intellectual understanding of spirituality in the west among some evangelicals and the needs of symbols and performative acts with materials in India is the main issue here.  If I love someone how to show it without physical act using materials?  I love my mother and want to serve her. But this I have to do it by practically looking after her using materials.  Note what Bailey says about it:

 

…there is no ‘spiritual gospel’ that can be endorsed in isolation from the reality of the physical world that God created, called ‘good’ and into which he placed human beings.  This combination of the spiritual and the physical and its relationship to God is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus.  For example, the Lord’s Prayer includes a request for the gift of bread. {The Parable of the Rich Fool. Lk. 12: 13-21}—[Bailey, 2008, p. 298]

As I said is our act of worship is real or symbolic?  For me the materials that we use are immaterial for us.  I will go even to the extent of saying that they are not even symbolic but mere materials which we can use and throw. But the acts that we do are not symbolic.  Otherwise the acts of god in history will become symbolic as several liberals claim. 

Integrating the physical act within and make it mere spiritual or symbolic is also part of our Indian tradition. In fact the entire Aranyaka literature of Veda demonstrates it.  There all the sacrificial acts done by the Brahmin priests in any yajna (Vedic sacrifice) is internalized and done in the mind without actually using the physical material. There are similar stories in bhakti tradition on this subject.  One Pusal Nayanar belongs to Kanchipuram (near Chennai in Tamilnadu) constructed a temple for Siva in his mind and invited the Lord to come and dwell in that temple in a particular day. While the king Kadavar Koman physically constructs a grand stone temple for Siva and fix the same date for the ‘kumbabishekam’ (inauguration with ritual). But Siva appearing in the dream of the king advised him to change the dates as he is not available on that day as he has to go dwell in the temple constructed by his simple devotee in his mind on the same day. [Manikkanar, 2000, songs 4171 to 4185]. But this never made common people stop doing various kinds of rituals using materials.  New temples are constructed even today.

So apart from using Indian or Sanskrit terms all these kinds of various theology behind in every ritual more complicates the theology after Prasad.  Here I am not prescribing easy answer.  However a Hindu bhaktas because of her background easily understands the meaning behind ‘Maha Prasad’ than thinking all the complication in theology.

The first thing that we need to remember is that any materials that are offered to any deity is ‘naivedyam’ (Sanksritized Tamil) or ‘nivedana’.  When it is received back by the devotee then it becomes “uchista(m)”  which could literarily translate as ‘leftover food’ what we call in Tamil yetchil (spittle), though the word ‘uchista(m)’ is not used for prasad but only to the leftover food of the human.  In bhakti tradition receiving and eating the ‘yetchil’ of a deity is considered as the highest blessing as it gives personal contact with the deity as explained by Cort, ‘…Many scholars have argued that the offering of food to a Hindu deity is puja and its transformation into prasad by being tasted by the deity is intimately related to superior-subordinate relations in the purity-based caste hierarchy….’⁶ Whereas ‘to charge someone with having eaten food defiled by another’s saliva, is indeed a serious insult’⁷

Till the recent past, in several Hindu houses (particularly among the so called high caste, and more specifically [Tamil] Brahmin houses) when the husband is first fed, he should deliberately leave some food for his wife to consume from the same plate in which the wife will take her food. This I have witnessed personally on several occasion.  Now this practice is almost disappeared except on the day of wedding, where immediately after the marriage when the couple are fed, their leaves are exchanged for both of them to eat the ‘yetchil’ of each other.  It is like the priest asks the husband to kiss his wife after wedding in western countries.  (A small digression here: Why the feminist failed to note that why the wife was not asked to kiss the husband and why it is always the husband asked to do it first?). A devoted wife will consider the leftover food as the ‘prasad’ of her husband and a devotee do the same.

When I visited Yamunotri back in 1992, I cooked some potato along with rice and dhal in the hot spring tying them all in a towel and drowning it in the hot spring.  When I took and began to eat, some pilgrims who came there stretched their hand to me. When I said that ‘it is leftover food’ (jutta in Hindi), one of the elderly person responded by saying, ‘that is why we want it. It is your prasad which we want to receive’.  So in the course of history this act of ‘grace’ is transmitted over any material which is offered and received back to the deity is called prasad.

So practically prasad is the “leftover food” from the deity which is fed by the priest (in the temple)⁸ or a devotee (at home) and not merely a thing offered to it.  Of course several things  ‘kumkum, vibhuti (ash), laddu, batasa (hardened sugar), flowers and water etc.’ which a devotee brings back from a temple or pilgrim center is also called prasad.  These days such prasad is sent to the patron by the priest through post and courier.  Even the arati is taken in a temple before the deity, when it was brought back for the devotees also considered as prasad as India:

            While arati is being performed, the arati plate is waved over the image of the deity by the officiating priest.  I doing so, the plate itself is said to acquire the radiance and the power of the deity.  The priest then takes the plate around to all those present as prasada.(p. 3)  The devotees cup their downturned hands over the flame and then raise their palms to their forehead.  By doing this, it is believed that the purificatory  blessing passed from the deity’s image to the flame, has now been passed to the devotee. ⁹

While celebrating ‘Maha Prasad’ as communion service we never ‘offer or feed’ anything to the Lord which we later receive as his ‘leftover’ food.  When we use certain native words and symbols we know that there are various shades of meaning behind it.  That is why I am careful when I use and explain them.  I am not sure in the churches the materials used in the communion service, particularly among the Protestants used as mere symbols or actually using any material to remember the sacrifice of the Lord.   According to my understanding the very act of celebrating Maha Prasad is not symbolic viz., our worship is not symbolic but we are ‘remembering’ and also celebrating in a fellowship and we never can perform it for oneself, though I heard that some Catholic priests, particularly monks (priest) used to do that while performing it for some patterns who requested to do that for them.  Regarding other things like ‘kumkum, vibhuti’ etc. which are used by the Hindus as the prasad of a deity, they actually are not fed to the deity but ‘offered’.  At the same time it should be noted that any substance used to perform ‘abisheka¹⁰ (pouring or applying) to any deity is used as prasad.  But in few cases like a priest distributing ‘kumkum or vibhuti’ in a temple anything offered or fed to the deity is considered as ‘prasad’.  So one should know all these kinds of various shades of meaning and acts before commenting upon it when used by us in our need to celebrate our bhakti in the Lord using our own native terms and symbols.   For us Maha Prasad is the celebration of ‘table fellowship’ with other bhaktas ‘remembering’ his act of sacrifice in which we use ‘local materials’ like banana, milk, coconut, roti, dhal, rice, puffed rice, black tea, etc.  In no Hindu temple they will offer ‘black tea’ even as an offering to the deity.  Of course I have witness my aunt (my father’s younger sister) offering the coffee to the family deity before she takes it in the morning, even before taking bath!!!  Similarly around 11.00 am she will keep a glass of water before the deity.  Hindus are free to use any kind of bhakti expression without minding or worrying about the theology behind it.  And one who questions the use of local terms and symbols for our bhakti should keep all these points in mind.  In Hinduism prasad which was an adjective become a noun transmitting the grace of the deity through the material used to offer to it.  But in our bhakti to celebrate the grace of God through the sacrifice of the Lord by using the term Maha–Prasad in which we use local materials we remember that grace.  We never offer any materials to the Lord or feed god to receive it back as if it transmit his grace through them. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss all the details about ritual.  Several scholars have written about it¹¹  But we should remember that as every action done by us has a meaning, there is a meaning and purpose behind every ritual.¹²  So try to explain any ritual as ‘proactive’ or ‘symbolic’ or ‘spiritual’ etc., many not clearly represent ritual done by a particular individual or group in a given context.  It is worth note that, ‘The English word “ritual” covers a wide range of human behaviours from elaborate offerings to simple gestures, whereas Sanskrit analogues have more specific reference….’[Flood, 2003, p.6]

For example the word ‘samskar’ is translated as ‘sacrament’, still samskar is different from sacrament in the sense in which it is used in Christian traditions which is more ‘liturgical act’ than spontaneous ceremonies.¹³  In Hinduism, though it is claimed that temple rituals are based on ‘Agamas’ still all the minute details of agamic rules and regulations are not followed in most of them were sometime left out.  Noting this Fuller says, ‘           In brief, the key points are that neither the Agamas nor the manuals contain explicit, detailed instructions about how to perform all the rituals in every particular temple, as they are widely thought to do.  The length and complexity of the instructions—for example, about preparatory rituals—means that any attempt to conform fully to all of them would often impose completely impractical demands on the priests’ time and patience as well….’[Fuller, 2003 p.82] This being the case any ritual performed as per the tradition still there are lots of flexibility and novelty to include new elements.  During Durga puja, several relics includes modern expression of (demon) Mahishashana holding modern weapons like guns etc.  As change and continuity is the mark of Hinduism, while tradition is preserved in some basic details new things are always added.  But this is not the case with the ‘communion service’ performed in most of the main line churches, particularly by Catholic and several Anglican churches which strictly followed liturgy handed over to them.  That is why Balagangadhara says, ‘…The so-called religious “rituals”, like the Catholic mass, are considered important by those who participate in them because of the liturgy.  Some actions are allowed because they are textually guided and interpreted.  They are better called liturgical actions,¹⁴ not rituals….’ [Balagangadhara, 2005, p. 417]

So when we try to analyze and bring it under any particular category, then any human act won’t neatly fit in to it.  Rituals are physical acts in which materials are used.  At the same time on philosophical level in few cases its purpose is spiritualized.  If we began to ‘spiritualize’ everything then life lived in a body which requires so many material things to survive become meaningless and purposeless.  According to my understanding, Muktiveda never allows us to go to that extreme of ‘spiritualizing’ every human act at the cost of the reality of material needs in life.  A Tamil saying might help us to understand the difference between an act and a ritual: water becomes ‘teerthanm’ (holy water) only when it is poured from a conch shell’.  (சங்கிலிருந்து விழுந்தால்தான் தீர்த்தம்).  The same water when poured from a conch shell in a ritual becomes holy water, whereas when it is used for other purpose in a ritual (like washing the hands or other things) it does not become holy water.  When the same water is used to wash the deity after every ‘abishekam’ (anointment), then it is collected and received as ‘prasad’. 

Over spiritualizing every ritual might end up creating only dry intellectualism which might not appeal to ordinary people.¹⁵  There is also a danger here.  By spiritualizing every ritual we cannot say that it is nothing but to express the personal relationship between a bhakta and bhagavan therefore there is no need of any ritual or sacrament to worship god.  My response to this is, if relationship alone is so important then what is the need for worship even?  Does god going to understand and accept your relationship only if you worship him or her?  For a bhakta relationship with her bhagavan is important. Worship is only one of the acts to express and enjoy that relationship.  But that relationship is expressed through ritual by giving expression to the inner joy and experience of it.¹⁶  If you love someone, then show it.¹⁷  As I say in different context not using any symbol itself a symbol as there can be no tasteless food. Every food has its own taste. When we are not familiar with a particular taste we may say that it is a tasteless food.  Whereas it has only a different taste and not remain a tasteless food.  To say in other words, according to my understanding not performing any ritual in worshiping god itself is another kind of ritual.  So through worship we celebrate our relationship with god and by performing (or not performing) ritual we give physical expression to it. 

Above all ritual is not merely a religious performance.  Note what Clarence says about this:

…rituals and sacraments are historical entities and sociological necessities.¹⁸ While religion may be seen as a personal and private relationship between the individual and his deity, this relationship grows out of, and develops in, historical sociological situation. In the first place, at least in the formal sense it is a learned relationship. (p.6) The individual forms his conceptions of God and deities and the forms and manners of relating to them in and through society.  These are socially given constructs at least in the initial stages which may later develop into mystical and transcendental experience.  Rituals and sacraments are essential part of this process and cannot be done with.  Secondly, at least from a Christian point of view, the religiosity of a person involves a two way relationship.  It is not only a person’s relationship with God but also that with his fellowmen.  Through rituals and sacraments the community of faith is maintained and organized and as such relates with the world.[McMullern, 1979, pp. 6-7]

And in relating to the world, it also ‘establishes an intimate relation between religion and non-religious acts’ [ibid.] ….¹⁹[Chaubay, 1979 p. 39]  That is why, ‘….Rituals cannot be private acts because they can be imitated.  Being a public event, in this sense of intersubjectivity—even if it concerns only a small secret or tantric circle of initiated specialists—is thus another formal criterion….’[Michaels. 2018, p. 433]

Another important fact about ritual is that ‘….rituals are often believed to be effective independent of their meaning: ex opera operato.  This means that they cannot be reversed, for that requires a new ritual. [Michaels. 2018, p. 433].  This we can understand by noting that a sannyasi need to perform another karma (ritual) in order to give up entire karma (rituals).  But note that doing any ritual is not mere act or karma according to Hindu (theological) worldview:

‘The sacrifice is the highest and best work (of ritual),’ says the Satapatha–brahmana {yajno vai sresthamam karma. 1.7.1.5. [Weber, 1882-1900] From a brahmanical point of view, rituals are seen as constructions of a world with which man ritually identifies himself: ‘Man is born into a world made by himself”{ Satapatha–brahmana 6.2.2.7}. Only by ritual, and not by ‘normal’ (karma) action, can he be liberated—or, conversely, by no action at all. Thus, ritual action has to be separated from non-ritual action, as the Bhagavadgita clearly says: ‘This world is bound by the bonds of action (karma) except where that action is done sacrificially.’ (Gita, 3.9ab Hill, 1928.)[Michaels. 2018, p. 436]

That is why, ‘…Rituals must be performed consciously, and, at the same time, the consciousness should not affect the rituals too much.[Michaels. 2018, p. 441]

As relativism and pluralism is a Hindu reality, both philosophy and practice can go hand in hand as one compliments the other.  Whereas followers of Abrahamic faith has to use too much words to explain their ritual when compare with other faiths.  For example Amini says:

…but in Islam we have no such rituals.  Islam presents a code of life, based on Divine guidance and is free from all man made shackles of rituals and sacraments. [Amini, 1979, p.131] [Emphasis added]

But compare what he continues to say:

            The remaining four pillars of Islam embody the four basic forms of worship by which a Muslim expresses his reverence and love for the Master.  While the keynote in all these forms of worship is to honor and love God wholeheartedly, certainly rituals are also prescribed so that the body may join the heart and soul in the acts of worship…. [132] …Islamic prayers or rituals, if we so call them, are thus nothing but the physical symbols of the inner yearnings of the devotee for the Almighty God…. [ibid. 132-133] [emphasis added]

This became more complex when rituals are standardized and theologized by making them as ‘Sacrament’ in Christianity.  Of course even in Hinduism the agamas has done the same,²⁰ which later extended to a limited way in performing domestic rituals and pujas by publishing printed books for every ritual both in temple and at home.  Now they are available in market even in regional languages which can be used in the absence of ritual specialists to perform it.  For example in the past Brahmin priest services are required to do Knew Moon ritual (amavasya tarpana).  But now one can do it following the printed text available in the market or listening to audio or watching video recording.  But the same is not the case when it comes performing ‘sacraments’ in Christianity.  Apart from the complex theological development and understanding, most of them cannot be performed by lay believers in a church.  Bring all the points related with the complexity regarding sacrament is beyond the scope of this paper.  As a lay person, not knowing theology and technical terms in the original (Greek, Latin, etc.) I cannot say anything about sacrament here.  However there are scholarly books written on this subject which one can read and try to understand—though it is not going to be that much easy.  Where the scholars are stumble, I should not even dare to talk about it.  So I am going to give some important points from the Scholarly work at the end in the appendix.

Notes

1.. Prasad as ‘grace’ is adjective I think.  But when we use it for any items that we consume it becomes ‘noun’.  This I say not knowing English grammar properly. However note how several Sanskrit words meaning have changed:

As is the case with so many Sanskrit words, the semantic range of uddhaara is broad, including as it does the supreme goal of liberation and the uprooting of criminals, as well as the more specialized legal meanings of a portion of inheritance or the booty allowed to a king during war….In the modern period the word uddhaara came to be used in the sense of ‘reform’ and ‘improvement’ (unnati).  These concepts, which were central to bourgeois discourse during the nineteenth century, played a prominent role in the discourse of the Indian Renaissance…..—Hatcher, notes, 10, p. 174

2.. …prasaada is the material symbol of the deities’ power and grace, which are internalised by the worshippers when they eat the food.— Vijay Nath, p.140

3. Personal communication from DD

4. …For instance, the saying of grace before meals, a habit of many Christians, is a ritual of only those individuals in the Christian community who may be in a habit of saying grace, whereas it ceases to be a ritual for those in the group who do not have the habit to do so.— Khiyalie, p. 79

5.. …Though from the praises [in Reg Veda] of the gods one might infer that it was the gods who were upposed to bestow the benefits, it was in fact the complete set of ritualistic performances that was considered to be the cause of the showering of the benefits.  It was supposed that these ritualistic performances when carried out in all their details, precisely and accurately, could by their joint and mysterious effect produce a mysterious something whereby the prayers were fulfilled. (p.4)

…And it was enjoined that all the observances should be performed in exact accordance with the prescriptions laid down in the Brahmana literature.  Even the slightest inaccuracy or the most trifling inexactness would be sufficient to spoil the entire effect of the sacrifice….(p.5) Tvashtar had performed a sacrifice for the birth of a son who might kill Indra, but owing to a slight error in pronunciation the meaning of the prayer was changed and the sacrifice produced a son who was not a killer of Indra but of whom Indra was the killer. —Dasgupta,,pp.4, 5-6

6 Cort. ‘Jains, caste and hierarchy in north Gujarat’, In Dipankar Gupta, CASTE IN QUESTION, Identity or Hierarchy?  New Delhi, SAGE Publications, 2004,  p.85.

7. M.N. Srinivas, ‘Some Reflections on the nature of caste Hierarchy’, pp. 173-186, p. 184.  in op. cit.. Note further what Srinivas says: …The Bhangi are scavengers, and they also remove, at village dinners, the impure leaves on which the higher castes have eaten. Finally, they also eat the impure food left on the leaves by the higher castes.—ibid. p. 184 [it should be noted that now almost this practice disappeared in most parts of India].

8 ‘prasada (food sanctified by being offered to the deity that is being propitiated)….’—Srinivasan, ibid.—p. 184 Also note that, ‘We have seen that an implicit idea in prasad taking is that, as one might put it in English, “you become what you eat”…..{The same expression exists in Hindi: jaisa ann, vaisa man)….’—Babb, p. 79

9 India Mystica, CD copy, pp. 3-4

10 Even today one can witness when several materials used for ‘abhisheka’ (abhishekam in Tamil) some of them are collected back to distribute as prasad. But when liquid items like milk, curd, honey, coconut water etc. are poured on the deity, then water is poured to clean and that water will be taken by the devotees witness that event as prasad.  Regarding abhisheka Davis says: …Abhiseka is a constitutive ritual action, in which substances and related powers are first collected into a liquid form and then infused into a recipient by pouring the substances over it….—Davis. p. 355

11. …The religious experience is established and externalized in the rituals and the accumulation of similar experiences slowly extends the dimension of the ritual. A rejection of rituals, therefore, is necessarily a rejection of the externalized reality of the actual spiritual experience. Langer observes, ‘with the formalization of overt behaviour in the presence of the sacred objects, we come into the filed of ritual.  This is, so to speak, a complement to the life-symbols; for as the latter present the basic facts of human existence, the forces of generation and achievement and death, so the rites enacted at their contemplations formulate and record man’s response to those supreme realities.’{Suzanne, p. 124}… ‘the vital ideas embodied in it cannot be repudiated because some one discovers that the myth does not constitute a fact’. {ibid. P. 164}….—p. 101

12…Of course, there is a purpose to rituals. Its function, you guessed it, is to reduce anxiety and tension; to act as a cementing bond of the community (‘re–ligare’ perhaps)…and so on.  It is far from me to deny that ritual does any or all of these things, but, surely, this is a bit silly.  The same is also said of religion, of dancing in Africa, of anything one does not know much about, which is just about everything regarding human beings and their societies: war does it, sex does it, ideology does it, worldviews do it, magic does it, religions do it…So, Why cannot rituals do it too?  This is the reason why one performs (what appears like) a ‘repetitive, mechanical, stereotyped’ activity.

            Many recognise that, on their own, rituals are ‘meaningless’.  They do that by referring to a parasitic relation between the rituals and something else.  Rituals enact a myth; or they are ‘symbolic’ actions, which signify or rehearse important events; or whatever else takes your fancy.  The motivation is the same in both cases: ritual appears meaningless, but it is not.  Why ever not?  ‘Because all our actions are meaningful’.—Balagangadhara, op. cit., p.416

All wisely-directed rites, when they are not simply commemorative or symbolical, have corresponding virtues in view.  For instance, an offering to the gods is a rite and it is intended to lead to self-sacrifice, which is a virtue.  Almsgiving is laid down as a rite, and it is intended to lead to generosity, which is a virtue.  Fasting is a rite, and it is intended to lead to self-control, which is a virtue…It is only when rituals are made ends in themselves, without leading to any virtues or to any chastening of the spirit, that they become dead-wood impending the growth of the soul. —Sarma, p.28

13…In essence, the difference between a ritual and a sacrament is not of form but that of content.  This difference of content, however, is of a subjective nature and is attached to a particular ritual by the Church and the believer.  It is only when this content of grace is attached to a form that a ritual becomes a sacrament and then implies a symbolic meaning or implication to the believer….— Khiyalie, op. cit. p.82

14… The term “ritual” signifies the words of a liturgical service and, therefore, is to be contrasted with “ceremonial”. The “ritual” is something good, but the “ceremonial” is something bad. It is a task of Christian theology to see that Christian rituals and sacraments do not become the “ceremonial”….—NIRMAL, p.66.

15 It is a recognized view in the Upanisads that meditation on the significance of a sacrifice yields the same result as the actual performance thereof. Ritual in the sense of a ceremonial act is an aid only at the initial stages in inward life.— T,M,P. MAHADEVAN, p.53

16        If, however, desire is the only qualification for union with Krishna, what is meant by the austerities and devotional acts the gopis have undertaken as part of the vowed ritual?  The commentator {Periyavaccan Pillai} observes that despite the fact that the ritual was undertaken as a pretext, it must not be abandoned by them once access to Krishna is gained but must be adhered to until completed.  That is the nature of a vow.  But the acts performed as part of it do not produce union with Krishna; the gopis are in no sense to be understood as bringing about the attainment of their goal by doing anything—service of Krishna can only be bestowed by Krishna himself.( p. 264)

            All lovers of the Lord perform ritual acts of worship as part of their service to him, but such ritual acts must not be viewed either as expressing one’s inherent qualification as a person fit to serve him, or as activities through which one becomes qualified to serve him.  The desire is all that is needed, and any shift to reliance on one’s own activities as qualifications—such as ritual purifications, sustained meditation, or righteous behaviour—must be guarded against even while they are (p.267) to be practiced…. —Hudson, 2010, pp. 264, 267-68

17        The Nayanars are well aware that ritual, by its very definition, holds the possibility of degenerating into mechanical piety, devoid of the emotion and spontaneity that is the essence of bhakti religion. Yet they view acts of ritual worship as an essential expression of emotional bhakti….( p. 43) For Appar, Campanta, and Cuntarar, ritual is beautiful. It is an important component of bhakti as aesthetic experience.  Ritual is an essential means for expressing one’s love for the Lord; it can be as emotionally charged as dancing or singing. Lastly, it consists of acts of offering and service, the ideal way of life for the true devotee.— Peterson, 1991. pp.43,  44

…Even though the biblical literature purged the rituals of the magical element, the institutionalized practices and the terminology describing them at times still contained the trappings or vestiges of the broader culture.—Walton2000, Introduction, Leviticus, p.25

18…And, just as the Vedas teach us religious ritual through textual rules, so also do the Dharmasastras teach us social ritual through textual rules.  In this way, law and religion merge within dharma in a way that makes it difficult to disaggregate them in many instances.— Davis, Jr. Introduction.  2018,p. 7

19  Hopkins, p. 180.  [Year is not mentioned], quoted by Chaubay, op. cit. p.39

20…Both Brahman scholars and Western academics perpetuated the concept that knowing Sanskrit texts alone implies ‘proper’ ritual knowledge. According to this perception, standardized texts alone are the source of authoritative knowledge (Fuller, 2003: 86)

            In this way, the medieval ritual texts (agamas and sahmitas) were transformed into ‘holy books’ of temple ritual, they were printed and published, and made available to temple priests….— Husken, pp. 124-146, 2016,p. 143

Appendix

Sacrament:

In the first century, the Lord’s Supper included not only the bread and the cup but an entire meal.  As part of the meal, neighbors who had quarreled made peace again.— Did you know?, John O. Gooch, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol.X, No.1),, p.3

When worship was ended, Christians took home the consecrated bread so that those who couldn’t attend worship could partake of the Lord’s Supper.  In North Africa, Christians took home the bread so they could celebrate the sacrament every day with their families.  Thus, ‘Give us today our daily bread’ carried a deeper meaning.— Did you know?, John O. Gooch, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol.X, No.1),p.3

            It is clear from the New Testament that the Last Supper did not merely contain a meal but was a meal.  It was Jesus’ custom to impart, especially to those closest to him, his gospel while dining with them.  Even after his resurrection he reveals himself to two discouraged disciples on the road to Emmaus ‘in the breaking of bread’ (Luke 24:13-35), and to others by the Sea of Tiberias at breakfast (John 21:1-29).— Aidan Kavanagh, Repeating the Unrepeatable, Christian History, Issue 37, (vol.X, No.1), p.39

…Altogether it would seem that, while his language is not fully explicit, Justin is feeling his way to the conception of the eucharist as the offering of the Saviour’s passion.  Irenaeus’s thought moves along rather different lines and does not link the eucharist so closely with Christ’s atoning death…— J.N.D. Kelly, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, Second Edition, 1960; Harper & Row, Pub. New York, p.197

…Ignatius roundly declares that `the eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father in His goodness raised’.  The bread is the flesh of Jesus, the cup His blood.  Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly, for he makes it the basis of his argument against the Docetists’ denial of the reality of Christ’s body…—ibid., p.197

…So Irenaeus teaches that the bread and wine are really the Lord’s body and blood.  His witness is, indeed, all the more impressive because he produces it quite incidentally while refuting the Gnostic and Docetic rejection of the Lord’s real humanity.  Like Justin, too, he seems to postulate a change,…—ibid., p.198

            Occasionally these writers use language which has been held to imply that, for all its realist sound, their use of the terms `body’ and `blood’ may after all be merely symbolical.  Tertullian, for example, refers to the bread as `a figure’ (figura) of Christ’s body, and once speaks of `the bread by which He represents (repraesentat) His very body’.  Yet we should be cautious about interpreting such expressions in a modern fashion.  According to ancient modes of thought a mysterious relationship existed between the thing symbolized and its symbol, figure or type; the symbol in some sense was the thing symbolized.  Again, the verb repraesentare, in Tertullian’s vocabulary, retained its original significance of `to make present’.  All that his language really suggests is that, while accepting the equation of the elements with the body and blood, he remains conscious of the sacramental distinction between them…. Similarly, when Cyprian states that `in the wine Christ’s blood is shown’ (in vino vero ostendi sanguinem Christi), we should recall that in the context he is arguing against heretics who willfully use water instead of wine at the eucharist….(p.212) His point is simply that wine is an essential ingredient of the eucharist, since numerous Old Testament texts point to it as a type of the precious blood….(p.213)

            A different situation confronts us when we turn to the Alexandrian fathers, for, while they verbally reproduce the conventional realism, their bias to allegory and their Platonizing absorption in the spiritual world behind phenomena alter their perspective.  Clement frequently writes in terms of the equivalence of the elements with Christ’s body and blood, in one passage representing Him as identifying them with Himself….More often than not, however, what seems a firm reference to the eucharist dissolves into an allegory of the true gnostic’s knowledge; feeding on the flesh and blood of the Logos means apprehending the divine power and essence….Much more important in his eyes, however, than this `typical and symbolical body’, as he designates the consecrated bread, is the Logos Himself, Who became flesh and is (p.213) our authentic food.  A host of passages suggest that for him Christ’s body and blood signify, in a deeper and more spiritual sense, His teaching, the ineffable truth which He reveals and which nourishes and sustains the soul.  The outward rite, he implies, which imparts the sacramental body and blood, is for the simpler grade of Christians, while the more advanced, with their profounder insight, find nourishment in the Logos Himself.—ibid., pp.213-14

            As regards the Holy Communion, the eucharistic prayer had previously been conceived as effecting the consecration, but (p.425) attempts were now made to define the causal efficacy more precisely.  One widespread theory was that consecratory power lay in the repetition by the priest, acting in Christ’s stead, of the words used by Christ at the Last Supper.  Chrysostom, for example, states that the priest, standing in the Lord’s place, repeats the sentence, `This is my body’, and its effect is to transform the elements on the altar…On the other hand, such a document as Serapion’s liturgy exhibits traces of the idea that what consecrates the gifts is the descent of the divine Word upon them.  At the same time we see emerging the theory, already adumbrated in the Didascalia, that their transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit….Theodore of Mopsuestia seems to combine the two conceptions, stating that `when the priest declares them [i.e. the bread and wine] to be Christ’s body and blood, he clearly reveals that they have become such by the descent of the Holy Spirit’, although his general teaching is that the eucharistic mystery is accomplished by the descent of the Spirit….—ibid., pp.425-26

Nocke: …Of course a theologians who uses the term ‘sacrament’ also has to say what he specifically means with it. A very pragmatic answer to this question would be: sacraments are those fundamental gestures of fellowship in faith in which the proximity of God grants itself to us and which in fact have become classical signs in the Church.

In a narrower sense of the word, the sacraments at the same time draw our attention to our relationship towards the world….— Death and Resurrection as the Mystery of Christian Existence.  Franz-Josef Nocke.  Pp. 411-[428]450, in, Andreas Bsteh (ed.),  Christian Faith in Dialogue with Hindu Religious Traditions [Christian Faith in the Encounter with Hinduism 2],  Modling 2007, St Gabriel Publications,  p. 434

Nocke: …The same is true of the words.  Words of the sacraments are those that join together, like: I take you as my husband, as my wife, I shall love you, cherish, and honour you. Other performatives, such as: I curse you, I do not want to see you any longer, cannot be sacramental words. Hence, on no account is everything a sacrament. The meaning of the sacraments is rather to show that there exists a (p.434) sacramental figure of the world – in the midst of all this is not a sing of salvation and even does not want to be.—ibid. Death and Resurrection as the Mystery of Christian Existence.  Franz-Josef Nocke.  Pp. 411-[428]450, in, pp. 434-35

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