A practice I found odd for the
Brahmin religion is to bathe before any meal. I love to take showers myself and
to be clean but I don’t know if I would necessarily want to before every meal. This
is more or a ritualistic practice and is more commonly performed by wealthier
men who have quite a bit of leisure time on their hands. While this practice of
the Havik men is evident, the reading mentions that during some seasons it can’t
in fact happen often, depending on if that individual should return to work. Then,
another bath would be a requirement before another meal.
Chapter 2, Secular Defilement from
the book Purity and Danger, also
mentions the concept of pollution existing in food. Making sure food is not
contaminated or diseased before being consumed. This chapter goes on to list different
practices of the religion and ways food can and cannot be kept sanitary and
free of diseases or pollution. One of the examples used is, when talking about
what type of food has more contamination between cooked or uncooked food. I was
surprised to find out that cooked food does have a higher chance of being
contaminated. The reading does not explain why this may be the case, but I
thought it might have to do with that fact that cooked food is usually passed around
and touched by many people for consumption, while uncooked food still can cook
off anything thing that may not be sanitary. And food that can be tossed into
the mouth for consumption has that greatest chance to avoid pollution then food
that has to be bitten into because of the contamination saliva carries.