Divine Appetites: Food Miracles, Authority and Religious Identities in the Gujarati Hindu Diaspora

Abstract

Research of the Gujarati Hindu communities of the United Kingdom and New Zealand has uncovered an extraordinary diversity of belief concerning the miraculous consumption of devotional food offerings by murtis. Devotees of certain traditions have experienced these events first-hand, but many Hindus believe the process is more subtle. Others suggest that such claims are attempts to gain spiritual authority among Hindus in the diaspora, some dismiss them as simply fraudulent. This article examines the appetite of the divine and how it is understood and contested by various Gujarati Hindu traditions in the United Kingdom and in New Zealand. It will assess the significance of food miracles and how they strengthen ideas of religious identity and spiritual validity as well as their role creating a palpable tension between traditions as to who authoritatively represents Hinduism in the diaspora.

Notes

¹ The original quotation is in Kumarappan 316–7.

NOTES

1. Dates provided by B.A.P.S. Swaminarayan administration office, Swaminarayan Mandir, Neasden, UK.

2. Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Sanstha: a significant branch of the Swaminarayan tradition and prominent in the Gujarati Hindu diaspora.

3. A sampradaya is a distinct religious tradition; its central teachings have been handed down from the original founder, a guru or possibly deity, through a lineage of spiritual successors, all of whom have shaped the religious lives of its devotees.

4. Devotional hymns sung while preparing and offering devotional food offerings (see section “God ‘Steps’ out”).

5. Image that has within it the presence of the deity that it represents (see section “The Divine Manifests”).

6. For an account of the Indian celebration of Annakut, see “The Mountain of Food” (Toomey in Khare 117–47).

7. Built and opened by devotees in 1995 and the only mandir dedicated to Jalaram Bapa in the UK. There is no such dedicated centre in New Zealand, although I spoke to many devotees of Jalaram Bapa.

8. Gujarati saint renowned for his association with miraculous events, many concerning the multiplication of food (see section “God ‘Steps’ Out”).

9. On the morning of 21 September 1995, devotees in a Delhi temple began to witness Ganesha, the elephant-headed God, consuming milk that was being offered to him. Word of the miracle began to spread rapidly via global communications and Hindus in countless locations around the world witnessed the same phenomenon (Davis 1). For an extended discussion concerning this event, see Davis 29–30.

10. The notion of secular society is contentious, with contrasting theories surrounding it. Tschannen (qtd in Hunt (15) offers three theories that share a broad set of assumptions about modernity: (1) the advance of rationalisation where reality loses its sacred character to be replaced by a rational-causal explanation of the world; (2) particularly relevant to the UK and NZ is differentiation, with society disengaging from religion. Religion withdraws into a marginalised enclave and becomes primarily a private concern. Religious symbols, doctrines, and institutions lose their prestige and significance; (3) increasing worldliness and de-sacralisation include greater conformity to this world at the expense of belief in the supernatural, even by forms of traditional religiosity. This last theory is particularly important in the present argument.

11. The often violent reassertion of economic and cultural authority of indigenous Africans over the Asian population in East Africa led to mass migration.

12. The term ‘diaspora’ is here used in generic terms, referring specifically to Gujarati Hindus who have left their homeland in west India and settled in the UK and NZ, in many cases via an interim location, such as east Africa or Fiji, or who have migrated directly or were born to parents of Gujarati origin in the UK or NZ.

13. The Swaminarayan movement is one of the traditions which are devoted to Visnu and his incarnations such as Krsna and Rama, as supreme Godhead (Waghorne and Cutler 199).

14. This is a small image of the deity (Sahajanand Swaminarayan) which the sadhus take on their tours and which are kept in temples (Williams 241).

15. By referring to ‘vernacular traditions’ I am employing what Primiano considers a methodological, theoretical, and interpretive term that indicates how religion is lived, how it is encountered, understood, interpreted, and practised on a day to day basis. It involves looking at the religious lives of individuals and pays special attention to the process of religious belief, the verbal, behavioural, and material expressions of religious belief, and the ultimate objects of religious belief (Primiano 44). In short, vernacular religion could be said to be “The totality of all those views and practices of religion that exist among the people apart from and alongside the strictly theological and liturgical forms of (official) religion” (Yoder 2).

16. Tulasi is sacred basil identified with the presence of Vishnu in worship and is used in rituals (Klostermaier, Encyclopaedia 189).

17. The incident took place many years ago, after the father of this particular family dreamt that the saint would appear to him. After a lightning storm the following evening, a very clear image of Jalaram Bapa along with Krishna and a cow and calf appeared on white wall tiles. As a consequence, followers flocked to the house to have darsan with the manifestation. The tiles, now faded, take pride of place on the family's modest home shrine in Leicester where they took residence after expulsion from Uganda (Michaelson qtd in Burghart 45).

18. Such phenomena require further in-depth research.

19. ‘The right food’ is understood to be food that is sattvic. This term refers to the quality or the guna inherent in the food. There are three gunas: tamas, rajas, and sattva. According to the Samkhya system, they designate the three principles of all material beings (Klostermaier, Encyclopaedia 78). In culinary terms, tamas guna refers to dark foods that induce lethargy and ignorance, such as animal flesh, onions, and garlic. Rajas guna refers to foods that induce an agitated state of mind, such as alcohol, chillies, and other hot spicy foods. Sattva foods are pure; they induce a balanced and focused state of mind perfect for devotional activity. Sattva foods include green vegetables, pulses, dairy products, and stable sugary products. Only sattva food will be offered to God and a predominantly sattvic diet is recommended in much of the classical literature (Doniger 5; Olivelle 28; Zaehner 386) and vernacular literature (Sadhu Mukundcharandas 148) in the Hindu diaspora. It should be noted, however, that there is no evidence to suggest that all Hindus in the Gujarati diaspora adhere to a purely sattvic diet or to strict vegetarianism.

20. It has been suggested that God actually inhales the aroma of the offering, but only one informant made any mention of this. I could find no reference to this in any literature relevant to this study.

21. VHP and RSS are Hindu nationalist organisations active throughout India and antecedents of Vishva Hindu Parishad are active throughout the Hindu diaspora.

22. It would not, however, be easy to say whether one is becoming more or less sceptical or rationalised than the other, without further detailed comparative research.