Where the Lord has his fill
Sailen Routray
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| Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org/Post of India |
Mahaprasad or the food of the gods
Ritually cooked food that is offered to the deities presiding over the sanctum sanctorum of Puri’s Jagannath Temple becomes mahaprasad after its consecration. Many smriti shashtras and puranas such as Skanda Purana and Mahapurusha Vidya extoll the virtues of mahaprasad as a ritual offering of food to the gods. Some sources consider it as being equivalent to the deities themselves (Pratihari, 2012).
According to historical sources, the tradition of mahaprasad was instituted in the Jagannath Temple by the Somavamshi kings of Odisha. Groups of temple servitors called badusuara and mahasuara have the right and the duty of cooking the food at the temple. It is cooked in the rosaghara, or the temple kitchens, located in the southeast corner of the Jagannath temple.
Mahaprasad is cooked over wooden/charcoal fires, in ochre coloured earthen pots, and on earthen stoves. It is essentially a slow cooking process and uses local ingredients with very limited use of spices. Vegetables are generally used whole without being peeled. Goddess Lakshmi herself is supposed to supervise the cooking process. (Pratihari, 2012)
However, the temple kitchen is completely forbidden to women. On ordinary days, the number of visitors at the Jagannath Temple swings between 15,000 to 35,000 people and a large number of these (10,000 on an average) partake the mahaprasad at the temple. Many of them also carry it home. It is a matter of belief among Hindus that consumption of mahaprasad decreases one’s bad karma (Züfle, 2017).
The temple kitchen is divided into two parts – the kotha bhaga ghara and the rosoi ghara. Kotha bhoga is the bhog that must be offered to the deities as a part of quotidian rituals by the Temple Administration, which also bears the cost of its preparation. Kotha bhoga is cooked in the eponymous kotha bhoga ghara. This bhog is ritually offered to the deities in the sanctum sanctorum, is distributed among the traditional temple servitors and is not meant for sale.
The bhog that is cooked in the rosoi ghara is offered to the deities in the bhogamandapa hall in the temple and is meant for sale to the devotees. The right of entrance to the temple kitchen is granted only to those men who belong to the families of Jagannath’s cooks (Züfle, 2017).
Mahaprasad as a living culinary tradition
Mahaprasad is offered to the deities on multiple occasions every day. During the morning, refreshments are offered during the gopala ballava bhoga. The morning meal is called sakaala dhopa. The food that is cooked for public offering is called bhogamandapa bhoga. The afternoon meal of the deities is known as madhyahna dhoopa, the evening meal as sandhya dhoopa and the last refreshments in the night are called as badasinghar dhoopa.
The gopala ballava bhoga, or the morning refreshments, are prepared by non-Brahmins. It is not prepared in the rosaghara. The dishes of this bhog are prepared in an additional kitchen called the ballava rosoighara. It is located adjacent to the temple market (where mahaprasad is made available to the devotees in lieu of payment) known as Ananda Bazara (Züfle, 2017).
Mahaprasad can also be termed as a living culinary archive. During the colonial period, many new crops were introduced from the New World, i.e., from the Americas, into India. Many food crops – grains, vegetables, spices and fruits - which we now consider as essential parts of Indian cuisine, started being cultivated and eaten in India only in the last few hundred years. These include vegetables like potato and tomato, condiments like chilly, cereals like corn, and fruits like pineapples, sapota and custard apple, and nuts like cashew.
None of these arriviste crops are used in preparing mahaprasad. Therefore, if someone wants to gain an understanding of vegetarian dishes and cooking processes in Odisha before the colonial encounter, they have no better cuisine to study than the mahaprasad of Jagannath Puri. The everyday menu comprises of rice-based dishes (such as kanika and khechudi), dals (e.g., dalma), and dishes made with various vegetables (like besara and mahura). (Züfle, 2017).
Mahaprasad is principally of two types. One kind consists of those dishes cooked with water – these are called sankhudi bhoga. The other type consists of dishes fried in ghee. These are called sukhila/nisankhudi bhoga. The latter last for a long time, consist of both sweet and savory items, and allow mahaprasad to be carried by devotees over long distances and time periods for family, relatives and friends (Pratihari 2012).
Apart from the bhog that is offered on a daily basis, several special dishes of mahaprasad are prepared on festive occasions. Perhaps the most famous among these is the podapitha bhog during Rath Yatra. The rathakora is also offered during this festival. Among mahaprasad dishes offered during other festivals, mention must be made of the keli and chhenamandua during Chandan Yatra, amalu and khiri during Jhulana Yatra, gaintha during Bakula Amavasya and Makara Chaurasi Bhoga during Makar Sankranti (Mishra 2022).
Mahaprasad and rasagola
A special mention must be mentioned here about the rasagola mahaprasad offered to the deities as a part of the Niladri Bije rituals that mark the end of the festivities of Rath Yatra. This will also throw some light on the geographical origins of rasogola as a sweet.
The rashogulla of Bengal and the rasagola of Odisha, especially the variety that is cooked for the deities in Puri, are two different dishes in taste and texture. Although both use chhena (cottage cheese) as the primary ingredient, and are round in shape, these are two very different sweets.
Some Sanskrit texts may proscribe the curdling of milk to produce cottage cheese. However, we cannot always see prescriptive texts as a guide to culinary practice. Given the fact that the culinary traditions of the Jagannath Temple in Puri do not seem to have changed much over the last five centuries at least, it is highly unlikely that the offering of rasagolas to the deities is a recent innovation.
Therefore, the rashogulla might be an invention by a Bengali confectioner in 19th century Calcutta, the rasagola of Odisha seems to be a sweet dish of hoary antiquity. Apart from the fact that both are balls of cottage cheese dipped in a sweet syrup, there is very little in common between the two (Mohanty, 2017).
Mahaprasad as a socio-cultural phenomenon
Mahaprasad is not only a matter of hoary culinary tradition, it also an important aspect of traditional and contemporary social life. Since mahaprasad can be partaken without the restrictions of caste coming into play, traditionally in the micro-region surrounding Puri, mahaprasad has been the first choice for serving in feasts. Because of the ease of transportation these days, it has become a part of many ritual feasts, especially those related to births, deaths, shraddha, upanayan feasts, etc. (ibid) in a wider region. Therefore, mahaprasad is an important part of everyday life of a large number of people from Odisha.
In many parts of the state, and in some neighbouring regions, mahaprasad plays an important role in ritualized friendships between men. In Odia this process is called ‘mahaprasadia bandhu basiba.’ Two men (across the barriers of caste, class, status and age) can decide to ritualize their friendship, feed each other mahaprasad and become ‘mahaprasad’ for each other. This is a relationship for life that cannot be broken. They become each other’s fictive kin and have to be treated as the closest kin (Skoda, 2004).
Engagements for marriages in Odisha are often solemnized with mahaprasad as the witness. People take a vow touching the mahaprasad. Breaking such a vow is considered a great sin (Dash, 2015).
Dried anna (rice) mahaprasad is called nirmalya. It is sold in very typical red coloured pouches. It has high ritual significance. Many Odia Vaishnavs do not eat anything till they have bathed in the morning and have had a grain of the nirmalya. Similarly, it is considered liberating for someone to have it as the last thing in their mouth before they die. Many communities also believe in supernatural healing properties of nirmalya. People use it to rid their houses of ghosts and other supernatural presences (Pratihari 2012).
Despite the importance of mahaprasad as an aspect of India’s culinary traditions, it has not been a topic of rigorous research and documentation. Especially the physical and material aspects of the cooking process of the mahaprasad have never been properly documented. It is high time this is undertaken with some sense of urgency.
Bibliography
Dash, Surendranath. 2015. Srimandira Sabdokosha. Bhubaneswar: SriJagannath Research Institute.
Mishra, Bhaskar. 2020. Shree Jagannath Gyanakosha. Cuttack: A. K. Mishra.
Mishra, Bhaskar. 2022. ShreeJagannathanka Rajabhoga. Bhubaneswar: Aama Odisha.
Mohanty, Asit. 2017. Shree Jagannathanka Rasagola. Bhubaneswar: Aama Odisha.
Mohapatra, Siddheswar. 2004. “Bhoga, Chhapana Bhoga.” In Odishara Khadya Sanskruti, edited by Ganeswar Mishra. Bhubaneswar: ink odisha.
Pratihari, Rabindranath. 2012. Sridarubramhanka Mahaprasad Rahasya. Cuttack: SB Publications.
Skoda, U., 2004. Ritual friendship in a converging tribal and caste society. Journal of Social Sciences, 8 (2), pp.167-177.
Züfle, Lisa. 2017. “The two faces of Mahaprasad: ritual and business in the kitchen of Sri Jagannath.” In Approaching ritual economy: socio-cosmic fields in globalized contexts, edited by Roland Hardenberg. Universität Tübingen.
Note: This essay first appeared in the book titled "Shree Jagannatha: Lord of the Universe" published by The Hindu Group.
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