Mahaprasad, the temple kitchen and one shared meal

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Namaste. Let us sit together for a breath. In. And out.

So far in this series we have heard how Jagannath came to Puri, how he rides out on the chariots, and how his wooden forms are renewed. Today we go somewhere smoky, busy and full of good smells. We go into the temple kitchen, and we talk about food.

In Puri, the food offered to Jagannath and then shared with devotees is called Mahaprasad. Prasad means grace, or a gift that comes back to us from the lord. Maha means great. So Mahaprasad is the great gift. For many people in Odisha, it is the heart of their love for Jagannath.

Let us first imagine the kitchen.

It lies within the temple grounds, and it is one of the largest temple kitchens in the country. There are rows upon rows of hearths, fed with wood. There are no gas stoves and no electric cookers. The cooks belong to families who have done this work for generations. Many of them learned by standing beside a father or uncle, fetching water, watching, and slowly taking on the work.

The food is cooked in clay pots. Tradition says new pots are used each day, made by potter families of the area. People in Puri love to describe one sight in particular. The pots are stacked one on top of another over the fire, sometimes several high, and it is said that the pot at the very top cooks first. Visitors often hear this told with a little smile, as a sign of the lord's hand in the kitchen.

The water for cooking is drawn from wells within the temple grounds. The tradition names two of them Ganga and Yamuna, after the two sacred rivers.

Think of how many hands this one kitchen needs each day. Potters shape the pots. Farmers grow the rice and the lentils. Woodcutters bring the fuel. Water is drawn, vegetables are cut, fires are tended. Many of these families have served the temple in the same way for a very long time, and each of them has a place in the lord's meal.

The food is simple and follows old rules. There is rice, dal, vegetables, greens, sweets and cakes made with ghee and jaggery. People say that no onion or garlic is used, and that vegetables which came to India in later centuries, such as potatoes, tomatoes and chillies, do not enter this kitchen. The menu, in a sense, remembers an older India.

Do you remember the chariots from our second sitting? Tradition says that when they are taken apart after the festival, much of their wood comes to this kitchen as fuel. So the wood that carried the lord through the streets may later cook his food. In Puri, very little is thrown away.

The cooks work in a spirit of care. They bathe before entering, they keep the kitchen clean, and they often work in silence, especially while carrying food to the lord. For them, cooking is itself a form of service, and many describe it as their family's way of worship.

Now, how does this food become Mahaprasad?

Through the day, food is offered to Jagannath at set times, in a series of offerings. There is an early morning offering, a late morning one, a midday one, an evening one, and a last offering late at night, before the lord rests. Each has its own dishes and its own name in the temple's routine. On festival days and in some daily rounds, the number of dishes can be very large. People speak of the chhappan bhog, the fifty-six offerings, though the exact count differs by occasion and by who is telling it.

The cooks carry the covered pots in silence to the sanctum. The food is offered to Jagannath, Balabhadra, Subhadra and the Sudarshana. Then, the temple tradition says, it is taken to the shrine of the goddess Bimala, within the temple grounds, and offered to her. Only after this, people in Puri say, does it become Mahaprasad in the full sense.

I find this detail lovely. The lord of the world does not eat alone. His food goes on to the goddess, and then on to everyone else.

And where does everyone else receive it?

Within the temple grounds is a place called Ananda Bazar, which means the market of joy. Here the Mahaprasad comes out in its clay pots, and people sit down to eat, or take some home for their families.

This is where Mahaprasad teaches its biggest lesson. In Ananda Bazar, people from many different backgrounds sit near one another and eat the same food, from the same kind of pot. In a land where, for centuries, rules about who may eat with whom were strict, Puri has long held that the lord's food is one food. It is not divided. It cannot be made impure by the hand that passes it, because it has already been touched by grace.

Many people in Odisha speak of this with deep pride. And many honest voices in Odisha also say that society outside the temple has not always lived up to this lesson. We can hold both. The ideal is there, in the clay pot, every day, asking us to live it.

Mahaprasad also lives in Odia homes, far from the temple.

In many families, a little of the rice is dried and kept carefully at home. It is sometimes called nirmalya. When someone in the family is very old, or near the end of life, a few grains of it may be placed in their mouth. It is a way of saying: you have eaten the lord's food, you are his, go in peace. Customs around this differ between families and regions, and I share it only as something many people hold dear.

There is another custom I love. Two people may become lifelong friends by sharing Mahaprasad and promising to stand by each other. In Odisha this bond is sometimes called being mahaprasad friends. People say such a friendship is as close as family, and in some villages the families of the two friends treat each other as relatives for generations.

People in Odisha also speak of two kinds of Mahaprasad. One is the cooked food, rice, dal and curries, which is eaten fresh and warm, usually within the temple area or soon after. The other is the dry kind, sweets and cakes that keep for some days. It is this dry kind that most often travels. A sweet called khaja, crisp and layered, is one that many visitors to Puri remember.

And of course, Mahaprasad travels. Pilgrims carry it home in small clay pots or wrapped in leaves, to share with neighbours who could not come. A small handful from Puri may be shared out among many homes.

Let us stay a moment with the idea of sharing one meal.

Most of us eat many meals in a week, and many of them quickly, with a phone in one hand. We rarely stop to think about who grew the rice, who carried it, who cooked it, and with whom we are eating. The temple kitchen in Puri turns the simple act of cooking and eating into worship, from the potter's wheel, to the fire, to the offering, to the shared plate.

You do not need to be in Puri to take something from this. Before a meal, you might offer the food in your heart first, in whatever way your family does, and then eat with gratitude. And when you can, eat with someone you do not usually eat with.

If you fast or change your diet for religious reasons, please do it gently. If you are pregnant, unwell, taking medicine, or looking after elders, follow your doctor's advice first.

Let us gather what we heard.

Mahaprasad is the food offered to Jagannath and then to the goddess Bimala, and then shared by all. It is cooked by hereditary cooks over wood fires, in clay pots, with water from the temple wells, following old rules about what may be cooked. In Ananda Bazar, people from many backgrounds eat the same food together. In Odia homes, dried Mahaprasad is kept with love, and friendships are sealed by sharing it.

One thing to take with you. This week, share one meal with someone outside your usual circle, a neighbour, a colleague, a person who works in your home. Sit down together, eat the same food, and let that be your small Ananda Bazar. It need not be a special meal. Simple food, shared with an open heart, is enough.

In our last sitting, we will hear about the poets, saints, singers and dancers of Puri, from Jayadeva's Gita Govinda to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.

Keep going

• Listen: Mahaprasad, the temple kitchen and one shared meal
• Previous: Nabakalebara, the new bodies of the lord
• Next: Poets and saints of Puri, from the Gita Govinda to Chaitanya
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• All episodes of Jagannath: the lord of the world at Puri