The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.278

v2.c17.s1.278

The cooks employed in dressing the food are called Sawārs which is a corruption of the word Śavara or wild hunter. They now claim to be the descendants of the fowler Viśvavasu, who worshipped the original god Nīlamādhava. But the sanctity attached to the food prepared by these—the lowest of low caste people—and offered to the divinities is immense. It is called Mahāprasād and esteemed the holiest of the holy in the universe, and the highest gods are blessed if they can partake of it. A single particle of it is sufficient to wash off the moral taint of the greatest crimes that created beings can commit. The murder of parents, spiritual guides and Brahmans, the slaughter of cows, the theft of gold, and of divine images, all become innocuous the moment the guilty person reverently puts a grain of the sacred Mahāprasād on his tongue. On the other hand there is no crime so heinous as that of treating it disrespectfully. It should be eaten the moment it is got without any discrimination of time, place or circumstances. Lakshmī herself is said to superintend the dressing of the food and to taste it before it is served; and when once placed before the images it can never be defild, not even when it has fallen out of the mouth of a dog, much less the touch of low caste people. The local Māhātmyas are replete with stories illustrating its merits. One of the Purāṇas gives a story showing how Śiva and his wife fell out because the former had forgotten to give share of the holy food to the latter. Mr. Hunter remarks: 'Woe to him who denies the efficacy of the Mahāprasād, the Great Offering! A hundred tales among the people warn priestly arrogance of the wrath of a despised god. There came a proud man from Northern India, who swore that he would look upon the Lord of the world, but that he would eat no leavings of mortal or immortal beings. But as he crossed the bridge outside the sacred city his arms and legs fell off and there he lay on the roadside for two months, till a dog came out of the town eating a fragment of the holy food and dropped some as he passed. The proud man crawled forward on his stomach and grubbing with his mouth in the mire, ate the leavings, all slavered from the jaws of the unclean animal. Thereupon the mercy of the good lord Jagannātha visited him: new limbs were given to him and he entered the holy city as a humble disciple'[.]^63 Hundreds of such instances may be easily multiplied; but they are not wanted. Suffice it to say that, notwithstanding the strong prejudice of the Hindus against eating rice dressed by other than their own caste men, not only is the rice Mahāprasād eaten from the hands of the [129] lowest castes—not excepting Candāls—at Puri, but it is dried and carried to all parts of India for consumption and at the periodical śrāddhas of Vaiṣṇavas a grain of this holy rice is invariably put on the funeral cake as the most sacred article that can be offered to the manes.