{"id":27316,"date":"2023-10-09T13:21:58","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T02:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/?p=27316"},"modified":"2023-10-09T13:21:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T02:21:58","slug":"prasad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/prasad\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Prasada or Hindu Religious Food"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Pras\u0101da<\/b>,&nbsp;<b>prasadam<\/b>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<b>prasad<\/b>&nbsp;is a religious offering in&nbsp;<a title=\"Hinduism\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hinduism\">Hinduism<\/a>. Prasad is cooked in large quantities during major festivals.&nbsp; Deepavali is one such festival during which Prasad is cooked for thousands of devotees and requires more Pujaris (priests) than other times.<\/p>\n<p>Most often&nbsp;<i>Prasada<\/i>&nbsp;is vegetarian food especially cooked for devotees after praise and thanksgiving to a god.&nbsp;<b>Mahaprasada<\/b>&nbsp;(also called bhandar\u0101),<sup id=\"cite_ref-maha5_1-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-maha5-1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;is the consecrated food offered to the deity in a&nbsp;<a title=\"Hindu temple\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hindu_temple\">Hindu temple<\/a>&nbsp;which is then distributed and partaken by all the devotees regardless of any orientation.<sup id=\"cite_ref-maha3_2-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-maha3-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup><sup id=\"cite_ref-maha1_3-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-maha1-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup><sup id=\"cite_ref-maha2_4-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-maha2-4\">[4]<\/a><\/sup><i>&nbsp;Prasada<\/i> is also sometimes called <i><b>naivedya<\/b><\/i>, also spelt&nbsp;<b>naivedhya<\/b>,&nbsp;<b>naibedya<\/b> or naived(h)yam. The food offered to God is called naivedya, while the sacred food sanctified and returned by God as a blessing is called prasada.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<i>prasada<\/i>&nbsp;is to be consumed by attendees as a holy offering. The offerings may include cooked food,&nbsp;<a class=\"mw-redirect\" title=\"Fruits\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fruits\">fruits<\/a>&nbsp;and confectionery sweets. Vegetarian food is usually offered and later distributed to the devotees who are present in the&nbsp;<a title=\"Hindu temple\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hindu_temple\">temple<\/a>. Sometimes this vegetarian offering will exclude prohibited items such as garlic, onion, mushroom, etc.<sup id=\"cite_ref-maha3_2-1\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-maha3-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Offering of food items forms part of the&nbsp;<i><a title=\"Upachara\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Upachara\">upachara<\/a><\/i>&nbsp;or services to a Hindu deity in many Hindu traditions but is not universal. The&nbsp;<i><a title=\"Murti\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Murti\">murti<\/a><\/i>&nbsp;(icon) is revered as a living entity who is offered food, fruits, and betelnut among others.<\/p>\n<p>Temples usually have stricter worship routines that include offering naivedya multiple times a day. Most <strong>temples allow only trained pujaris to cook the&nbsp;<i>naivedya<\/i>.<\/strong> The&nbsp;<i>naivedya<\/i>&nbsp;offered directly to the deity is considered as&nbsp;<i>prasada<\/i>, the deity having &#8220;enjoyed&#8221; it. This can be considered to be a symbolic rather than a literal offering.<\/p>\n<p>Offerings of food in home shrines are relatively simpler than the Hindu temples. A common practice is to mix the&nbsp;<i>prasada<\/i>&nbsp;back into the remaining food before partaking it.<\/p>\n<p>Tasting during preparation or eating the&nbsp;<i>naivedya<\/i>&nbsp;food before offering it to God is strictly forbidden. The food is first placed before a deity and specific prayers are offered with accompanying rituals. Afterwards, the food is considered as having been blessed by God, and has officially become the sanctified&nbsp;<i>prasada<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Offering food and subsequently receiving&nbsp;<i>prasada<\/i>&nbsp;is central to the practice of&nbsp;<i><a title=\"Puja (Hinduism)\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Puja_(Hinduism)\">puja<\/a>.<\/i><sup id=\"cite_ref-:0_8-1\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasada#cite_note-:0-8\">[8]<\/a><\/sup>&nbsp;<sup id=\"cite_ref-9\" class=\"reference\"><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Related Images:<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pras\u0101da,&nbsp;prasadam&nbsp;or&nbsp;prasad&nbsp;is a religious offering in&nbsp;Hinduism. Prasad is cooked in large quantities during major festivals.&nbsp; Deepavali is one such festival during which Prasad is cooked for thousands of devotees and requires [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1174,"featured_media":27318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[63,64,188,152,233,171,268,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-educational","category-festivals","category-hindu-gods","category-hindu-temples","category-hinduism","category-hindu-priests","category-hindu-rituals","category-vegetarianism","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27316"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27316"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27319,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27316\/revisions\/27319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwip.com.au\/hcaold\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}