The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.134

v2.c17.134

[82] Both at the great and at the minor festivals, dressed food of all kinds are offered to the god in profusion, and as already stated (p. [77]), sold to all comers. Persons of all castes or sects readily purchase such articles of food, including boiled rice which ordinarily forms the greatest bulwark to the caste system, and eat them with every mark of veneration. The only two temples in all India where this promiscuous eating of boiled rice is permitted, are those of Bhnvaneśvara and Puri, and in either case there are positive injunctions of the Śāstra in its favour. Reference has already been made to the prohibition against the eating of articles of food, offered to Śiva (*ante* I, pp [138] and [14!]), and to set it aside, the *Śiva Purāṇa* supplies the following story.