Post by saidevo on Sept 25, 2012 7:43:56 GMT 5.5
ParamAchArya's Daily bhikSA
Author: 'Paranthaman' (V.Narayanan) (in Tamil)
Source: ParamAchAryar pages 69-79
Publisher: Narmadaa Padhippaham
translator: saidevo
As everyone of his devotees knew, ParamAchArya's daily bhikSA was nothing more than nelpori soaked in curd or buttermilk or otherwise suitably prepared. He took only a little quantity of this 'food', which was the mainstay of his dietary habits throughout his life. At one time, he wanted to give up rice totally, and tried the flour extracted from raw bananas, but had to give it up on the entreaties of his doctor devotees because of the adverse effects this type of food might have on his health.
Sri 'Paranthaman' in his book ParamAchAryar recalls interesting incidents about the nelpori offer by devotees. Before we go into them, let us have a glance at what this divine food item can do for us.
We use nelpori and flattened rice, cooked and sweetened with jaggery and offer it to God on the day of the Kartikai festival. At the time of the annual shraarda ceremony, a few paddy grains are parched in the homa guNDam and consumed by the doer of the ceremony.
Thus nelpori is paddy parched in heat. The Sanskrit term for parched or fried grains is lAjAH. They are known as kurmura in Hindi. Parched rice grain is different from puffed rice, which is made by heating rice kernels under high pressure. Puffed rice is used by us on the day of Sarasvati Puja as an offering to the Goddess. In the North Indian dish bhel puri, puffed rice is a main ingredient.
Even though we generally use the rice grain for parching or frying, there are other grains that can be prepared as food this way. These include amaranth, maize, wheat, millet and barley. Non-grains that can be puffed include soybeans and markhana (a kind of water fruit). A brief discussion of the puffing process of grains is given at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffed_grain.
Though nelpori is also known as puffed rice in English, we might use the term parched rice grains or parched paddy for this variety, to distinguish it from flattened rice, which is our aval and the puffed rice which is our rice pori. The Website www.medindia.net gives a simple recipe of cooking nelpori as a liquid diet that can be used for nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sprue, fever, diabetes, obesity and caugh. Called Laja Peya, this Ayurvedic diet is made with two cups of parched rice grains and four cups of water, boiling the rice grains in water for 5-7 minutes and then adding salt, buttermilk and onions. Extremely light to digest, this diet balances the tridosha, quenches thirst, pacifies pitta and improves appetite.
Now to Sri Paranthaman's reminiscences:
The jnana bhumi magazine was conducting puja, japa, and homa at many places for the welfare of the world. The magazine team was approached by Pondicherry Sri Sankara Seva Association to conduct the jnana bhumi homam on the occasion of the anniversary of their association.
Sri Gopala Iyer and Sri Sridhar came very late for the puja and homa rituals. When asked about the delay they said, "We went to Kanchipuram to meet Sri ParamAchAryar, apprised him of the anniversary celebration details and took his blessings for the occasion."
I apprecited their principle and asked them, "Do you meet him often?" Gopala Iyer said, "How can I be anything without his grace? It was because of his anugraham that I am alive and active today." He continued, "Some months back, I was in the intensive care unit of a hospital for treatment of a heart disease. Even after coming home on discharge from the hospital, I was mostly bedridden, unable to act without the help of an assistant. Only during those one or two months I couldn't visit Kanchi MaTham or have darshan."
Gopala Iyer said, "For the last 25 years I have darshan of ParamAchAryar with an offer of the edibles that is used for his daily food." When I asked him, "You don't take anything in return?", he replied, "What could be more valuable than his hearty blessings and support? Two months back, because of my ill health, I sent the edibles through my son-in-law Sridharan. ParamAchAryar had suddenly asked him, 'Where is Gopalan? Nowadays he is not seen here?'
"Sridhar explained him about my ill health and my inability to stand up and walk. He told Sridhar, 'Tell him that I told him and ask him to come here.' Before Sridhar could reply, 'He is not in a position--', ParamAchArya said, 'He can come, ask him to come.'"
"Within two days we arranged a van and started with our friends and relatives. It was arranged that I would travel sitting on a wheelchair inside the van. What wonder, and what to say of the grace of Acharyar! I started getting up on my own and walked up to the van. It was the first time in a few months that I was able to walk on my own.
"When we reached Kanchipuram, ParamAchArya was informed about my arrival. He said, 'Ask Gopalan to come here.' My people said, 'He can't walk, shall we carry him?' He said, 'No, don't carry him. Ask him to come over here walking!'
"They held me by my hands and I was able to walk until I reached near ParamAchAryar. As his holy figure was sighted by my eyes, I started weeping, shedding garlands of tears. Acharyar gestured to the people who held me to leave me free. He asked me to sit down then and there. With tears flowing, I prostrated him in a half posture and sat down. After sometime, he blessed me and said, 'Rise up and go walking!' I did as he told me to. From that day, I am on foot, with no sign of my disease. Everything is the grace and blessings of ParamAchAryar!"
Though his family was connected with Kanchi MaTham and ParamAchAryar from the times of his ancestors, it was only recently that he was made an agent of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti MaTham.
This Gopala Iyer should have collected a large amount of puNyam in his early births. It was them that had given him the bhAgyaM of offering the edible that ParamAchArya consumed daily, even to the extent of making others jealous of him.
It can surely be said that no other saint in the world has conquered the tastes of the tongue as ParamAchArya has done. He has disproved the theory that healthy life is possible only with a large amount of nutritious food. In the history of his 93 years of life (so far) he did not seem to have had inordinate food or sleep or ill health. Despite such strict austerity, he never tired in reading, giving darshan, discussing, praying, administering SriMatham, travelling or implementing plans.
It can be said with certainty that no other feet have traversed the length and breadth of Bharat. His feet have touched and sanctified every temple and tIrtha ghat from the Himalayas to the Kumari, from Dvaraka to Jagannath.
His daily food was just the nelpori, soaked in curd or buttermilk or otherwise suitably prepared. There are interesting incidents connected with his daily diet.
About 25 years back, ParamAchAryar was camping in a village called Ayyur, near Villupuram. At that time, when this Gopala Iyer went for darshan one day, ParamAchAryar suddenly asked him, "Is it possible for you to prepare the nelpori required for me?" Since this man was a landowner, he brought finely prepared nelpori the very next day. ParamAchArya said with happiness, "These are very good. You supply me these daily to the extent of my needs."
This task of supplying parched rice grains was already being done by the Thanjavur advocate Venkatarama Iyer. He asked ParamAchAryar rightfully, "Can you disppoint me like this, when I have been supplying you the pori without fail all these days?" The sage said, "Gopalan's pori is good. All these days you have given. Let him give henceforth." Venkatarama Iyer persisted about his daily supply and ParamAchAryar said, "Alright, you too supply me." Since Gopala Iyer's pori was deemed to be good, Venkatarama Iyer took the paddy grains from him and made parched rice grains out of them. Both of them supplied the pori the next month. On the month after, Venkatarama Iyer had left the world. Only then people understood why ParamAchArya gave the order to another man when a man was already supplying him the food item.
From that time, Gopala Iyer never failed to supply the parched rice grains, whether he was in station or not. He even visited the places where the sage had camped and supplied the pori. For this purpose, he had visited places like Machlipatnam, Hampi, Bellary, Kurnool, Rajamundry, Satara, Sakapat, Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tenambakkam. When he went to Sholapur with the pori, ParamAchAryar told him not to supply it any more. Gopala Iyer asked him anxiously, "What mistake I have done to get this order from you? At least on this errand I have the bhAgyaM of your darshan once in a month."
ParamAchAryar said, "I am going to stop the pori AhAram. It is coming from paddy. The paddy plant has much of life in it. So I have stopped eating its products considering it a sin. Instead, I am planning to try the flour of raw bananas. Can you prepare and supply it?"
Gopala Iyer agreed readily to the proposal. He told me with gratitude, "From that day, I arranged for a relative at Trichy to supply me with the nendrankai raw bananas. I dry them, pound them, and sieve the mash into fine flour and supply it in tins. He is using it in a way that suits him, either as a porridge, or as iddlies or in another simpler preparation. He has granted me the bhAgyaM of supplying this flour continuously until now."
Using the nendrankai flour as children's diet is a custom in Kerala from ancient times. In dietary habits, children and old people have much in common. They need food that gives strength and digests easily.
One might raise a question: whether the banana tree does not have the same life as a paddy plant. The answer is that for every produce, the paddy plant has to kill itself, whereas the banana tree goes on spawning saplings from its roots, so plucking the banana crop does not amount to killing the tree.
Glossary:
AhAraH - fetching, eating, meal
lAjAH - parched or fried grains (esp. rice grain)
nendrankai - a variety of slim bananas, found in plenty in Kerala
shrArda - an annual Vedic ceremony performed to the ancestors.
*** *** ***
Author: 'Paranthaman' (V.Narayanan) (in Tamil)
Source: ParamAchAryar pages 69-79
Publisher: Narmadaa Padhippaham
translator: saidevo
As everyone of his devotees knew, ParamAchArya's daily bhikSA was nothing more than nelpori soaked in curd or buttermilk or otherwise suitably prepared. He took only a little quantity of this 'food', which was the mainstay of his dietary habits throughout his life. At one time, he wanted to give up rice totally, and tried the flour extracted from raw bananas, but had to give it up on the entreaties of his doctor devotees because of the adverse effects this type of food might have on his health.
Sri 'Paranthaman' in his book ParamAchAryar recalls interesting incidents about the nelpori offer by devotees. Before we go into them, let us have a glance at what this divine food item can do for us.
We use nelpori and flattened rice, cooked and sweetened with jaggery and offer it to God on the day of the Kartikai festival. At the time of the annual shraarda ceremony, a few paddy grains are parched in the homa guNDam and consumed by the doer of the ceremony.
Thus nelpori is paddy parched in heat. The Sanskrit term for parched or fried grains is lAjAH. They are known as kurmura in Hindi. Parched rice grain is different from puffed rice, which is made by heating rice kernels under high pressure. Puffed rice is used by us on the day of Sarasvati Puja as an offering to the Goddess. In the North Indian dish bhel puri, puffed rice is a main ingredient.
Even though we generally use the rice grain for parching or frying, there are other grains that can be prepared as food this way. These include amaranth, maize, wheat, millet and barley. Non-grains that can be puffed include soybeans and markhana (a kind of water fruit). A brief discussion of the puffing process of grains is given at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffed_grain.
Though nelpori is also known as puffed rice in English, we might use the term parched rice grains or parched paddy for this variety, to distinguish it from flattened rice, which is our aval and the puffed rice which is our rice pori. The Website www.medindia.net gives a simple recipe of cooking nelpori as a liquid diet that can be used for nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sprue, fever, diabetes, obesity and caugh. Called Laja Peya, this Ayurvedic diet is made with two cups of parched rice grains and four cups of water, boiling the rice grains in water for 5-7 minutes and then adding salt, buttermilk and onions. Extremely light to digest, this diet balances the tridosha, quenches thirst, pacifies pitta and improves appetite.
Now to Sri Paranthaman's reminiscences:
The jnana bhumi magazine was conducting puja, japa, and homa at many places for the welfare of the world. The magazine team was approached by Pondicherry Sri Sankara Seva Association to conduct the jnana bhumi homam on the occasion of the anniversary of their association.
Sri Gopala Iyer and Sri Sridhar came very late for the puja and homa rituals. When asked about the delay they said, "We went to Kanchipuram to meet Sri ParamAchAryar, apprised him of the anniversary celebration details and took his blessings for the occasion."
I apprecited their principle and asked them, "Do you meet him often?" Gopala Iyer said, "How can I be anything without his grace? It was because of his anugraham that I am alive and active today." He continued, "Some months back, I was in the intensive care unit of a hospital for treatment of a heart disease. Even after coming home on discharge from the hospital, I was mostly bedridden, unable to act without the help of an assistant. Only during those one or two months I couldn't visit Kanchi MaTham or have darshan."
Gopala Iyer said, "For the last 25 years I have darshan of ParamAchAryar with an offer of the edibles that is used for his daily food." When I asked him, "You don't take anything in return?", he replied, "What could be more valuable than his hearty blessings and support? Two months back, because of my ill health, I sent the edibles through my son-in-law Sridharan. ParamAchAryar had suddenly asked him, 'Where is Gopalan? Nowadays he is not seen here?'
"Sridhar explained him about my ill health and my inability to stand up and walk. He told Sridhar, 'Tell him that I told him and ask him to come here.' Before Sridhar could reply, 'He is not in a position--', ParamAchArya said, 'He can come, ask him to come.'"
"Within two days we arranged a van and started with our friends and relatives. It was arranged that I would travel sitting on a wheelchair inside the van. What wonder, and what to say of the grace of Acharyar! I started getting up on my own and walked up to the van. It was the first time in a few months that I was able to walk on my own.
"When we reached Kanchipuram, ParamAchArya was informed about my arrival. He said, 'Ask Gopalan to come here.' My people said, 'He can't walk, shall we carry him?' He said, 'No, don't carry him. Ask him to come over here walking!'
"They held me by my hands and I was able to walk until I reached near ParamAchAryar. As his holy figure was sighted by my eyes, I started weeping, shedding garlands of tears. Acharyar gestured to the people who held me to leave me free. He asked me to sit down then and there. With tears flowing, I prostrated him in a half posture and sat down. After sometime, he blessed me and said, 'Rise up and go walking!' I did as he told me to. From that day, I am on foot, with no sign of my disease. Everything is the grace and blessings of ParamAchAryar!"
Though his family was connected with Kanchi MaTham and ParamAchAryar from the times of his ancestors, it was only recently that he was made an agent of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti MaTham.
This Gopala Iyer should have collected a large amount of puNyam in his early births. It was them that had given him the bhAgyaM of offering the edible that ParamAchArya consumed daily, even to the extent of making others jealous of him.
It can surely be said that no other saint in the world has conquered the tastes of the tongue as ParamAchArya has done. He has disproved the theory that healthy life is possible only with a large amount of nutritious food. In the history of his 93 years of life (so far) he did not seem to have had inordinate food or sleep or ill health. Despite such strict austerity, he never tired in reading, giving darshan, discussing, praying, administering SriMatham, travelling or implementing plans.
It can be said with certainty that no other feet have traversed the length and breadth of Bharat. His feet have touched and sanctified every temple and tIrtha ghat from the Himalayas to the Kumari, from Dvaraka to Jagannath.
His daily food was just the nelpori, soaked in curd or buttermilk or otherwise suitably prepared. There are interesting incidents connected with his daily diet.
About 25 years back, ParamAchAryar was camping in a village called Ayyur, near Villupuram. At that time, when this Gopala Iyer went for darshan one day, ParamAchAryar suddenly asked him, "Is it possible for you to prepare the nelpori required for me?" Since this man was a landowner, he brought finely prepared nelpori the very next day. ParamAchArya said with happiness, "These are very good. You supply me these daily to the extent of my needs."
This task of supplying parched rice grains was already being done by the Thanjavur advocate Venkatarama Iyer. He asked ParamAchAryar rightfully, "Can you disppoint me like this, when I have been supplying you the pori without fail all these days?" The sage said, "Gopalan's pori is good. All these days you have given. Let him give henceforth." Venkatarama Iyer persisted about his daily supply and ParamAchAryar said, "Alright, you too supply me." Since Gopala Iyer's pori was deemed to be good, Venkatarama Iyer took the paddy grains from him and made parched rice grains out of them. Both of them supplied the pori the next month. On the month after, Venkatarama Iyer had left the world. Only then people understood why ParamAchArya gave the order to another man when a man was already supplying him the food item.
From that time, Gopala Iyer never failed to supply the parched rice grains, whether he was in station or not. He even visited the places where the sage had camped and supplied the pori. For this purpose, he had visited places like Machlipatnam, Hampi, Bellary, Kurnool, Rajamundry, Satara, Sakapat, Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tenambakkam. When he went to Sholapur with the pori, ParamAchAryar told him not to supply it any more. Gopala Iyer asked him anxiously, "What mistake I have done to get this order from you? At least on this errand I have the bhAgyaM of your darshan once in a month."
ParamAchAryar said, "I am going to stop the pori AhAram. It is coming from paddy. The paddy plant has much of life in it. So I have stopped eating its products considering it a sin. Instead, I am planning to try the flour of raw bananas. Can you prepare and supply it?"
Gopala Iyer agreed readily to the proposal. He told me with gratitude, "From that day, I arranged for a relative at Trichy to supply me with the nendrankai raw bananas. I dry them, pound them, and sieve the mash into fine flour and supply it in tins. He is using it in a way that suits him, either as a porridge, or as iddlies or in another simpler preparation. He has granted me the bhAgyaM of supplying this flour continuously until now."
Using the nendrankai flour as children's diet is a custom in Kerala from ancient times. In dietary habits, children and old people have much in common. They need food that gives strength and digests easily.
One might raise a question: whether the banana tree does not have the same life as a paddy plant. The answer is that for every produce, the paddy plant has to kill itself, whereas the banana tree goes on spawning saplings from its roots, so plucking the banana crop does not amount to killing the tree.
Glossary:
AhAraH - fetching, eating, meal
lAjAH - parched or fried grains (esp. rice grain)
nendrankai - a variety of slim bananas, found in plenty in Kerala
shrArda - an annual Vedic ceremony performed to the ancestors.
*** *** ***