Food for thought

What follows is a description of various South Indian food items by Sathguru Chandrasekarandra Saraswathi as found in a book Sollin Selvar, Sri Kanchi Munivar by Sri Ra. Ganapathy. I found the writeup very interesting and thought I'd share them with you. Enjoy. Enlighten.


South Indian Food

A typical South Indian meal is served in three main courses: sambar sAdam, rasam sAdam and more (buttermilk) sAdam.

Sambar is also known as kuzhambu in Tamil, a term that literally translates to 'get confused'. Paramacharya explains how these three courses are related to the three gunas of spirituality: the confusion of sambar is tamo guna, the clarified and rarified flow of rasam is  rajo guna and the all-white buttermilk is satva guna. Our meal reminds us of our spiritual path from confused inaction to a clear flow of action and finally to the realized bliss of unity.