Hinduism and Food

Hinduism is not a single faith but a vast complex of beliefs and practices that have developed over some 4,000 years and an extensive land area, a highly complex system of interacting elements. Therefore, generalities about it are likely to be unsatisfactory. However, it has a certain geographic unity, being more or less confined to the subcontinent of india, and its fundamental principles are common to all its followers. Several of these principles have deeply affected its attitudes to food: the underlying unity of all being; the high value placed on non-violence; belief in reincarnation leading ultimately to release from the illusion of individual existence; the extreme respect shown to cows; and the division of human society into varna or castes. Closely linked with the caste system is the concept of physical and ritual purification, by water or fire, and the need to maintain barriers between the self and anything that might contaminate it. Hinduism has a place for everything, and also a time.