Storia do Mogor 254.2.3

254.2.3

Then the rajah takes whatever pleases him, throwing it with his hand into a plate of rice, where he mixes it and rolls it into balls, which he throws into his mouth with the right hand. The left hand is not allowed to touch any food. All is swallowed without mastication. This fashion they consider very cleanly, and that there is no better way of satisfying oneself; and they say that Europeans eat rice like pigs. Then, before finishing the meal, they send as much as they think sufficient to their wives. For in this country these never eat with their husbands, even though those waiting on the king be eunuchs, children, or women. The way of eating among the other castes who are not kings is as follows : Monks, ascetics, Brahmans, and the learned before eating wash their hands and bodies. Then they put upon their foreheads, stomach, shoulders, knees and sides a little ashes mixed in water. This ash is either of a white earth they call naman (nāmam), or of sandal, according to their caste or the faith they follow. Next they enter the house, finding its floors all rubbed over with cowdung, in the way I have spoken of. They bind round their body a piece of cloth, and sit down with their legs crossed, or upon a small mat of about one cubit in length. Before them is placed the large leaf of certain trees, or smaller leaves of other trees stitched together, not with needle and thread, but with rushes.