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 neighbors, then it becomes prasad. There is a humor side also in this. Tirupati is famous for its laddu. Even the atheist would like to eat it. But there is a ration for this at Tirupati. Each devotee will get only one laddu. But they have to distribute this prasad to so many. There are many local shops that 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 Tirupati, then it is prasad for 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 is not understanding the 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 if you go and ask a Hindu she might not even be in a position to understand what we are talking about.
But I think this is easier 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 Muktinath’s presence and blessing, even one important for salvation (more Roman Catholic)? Is the material symbolic but the action brings the “spiritual” presence of the Lord that nourishes the believers (Reformed)? Or is everything (material and action) symbolic – not conveying His 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 did 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’ amid 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 performed correctly 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 mechanics. As far as I know, 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 on 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 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 making 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 belonging 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 on a particular day. At the same time, the king Kadavar Koman physically constructs a grand stone temple for Siva and fixes the same date for the ‘kumbabishekam’ (inauguration with ritual). But Shiva 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 show 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 of all the complications in theology.
The first thing that we need to remember is that any materials that are offered to any deity is ‘naivedyam’ (Sanskritized Tamil) or ‘nivedana’. When it is received back by the devotee then it becomes “uchista(m)” which could literally 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 occasions. Now this practice has 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 the 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 potatoes 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 persons 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 are 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 a 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 witnessed 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 became 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 as grace. We never offer any materials to the Lord or feed God to receive it back as if it transmits 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 include modern expressions 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 into it. Rituals are physical acts in which materials are used. At the same time on a 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 purposes 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 for 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? Is God going to understand and accept your relationship only if you worship him or her? For a bhakta, a 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 a different context, not using any symbol itself as 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 does not remain a tasteless food. 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 situations. 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 opere 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 needs 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 have to use too many words to explain their ritual when compared 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 becomes more complex when rituals are standardized and theologized by making them as ‘Sacrament’ in Christianity. Of course, even in Hinduism the agamas have 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 the market even in regional languages which can be used in the absence of ritual specialists to perform it. Thanks to the Internet, now it is available in electronic copy and there is no need for a priest to perform. Soon AI will do everything for us—but I wonder whether It could also worship God for us? For example, in the past Brahmin priest services were required to do New Moon rituals (amavasya tarpanam). 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 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
- Personal communication from DD
- …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 supposed 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.
- 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
- …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 field 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 someone 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 sign 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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