Dear sir,
I was just very curious here..see as a doctor we only know about physical body and also of the gross form of food but thats not entirely the end point as any gross form does have a subtle form and food does have its subtle essence.
Dear Sir when I have a reasonable doubt dont get me wrong that i am disagree with a cultural practise but just want to find out more and the principle behind anything thats all.
I would really like you or anyone else to clear my doubt..
thank you
renuka
Smt Renuka ji,
I know only about the customs among brahmins. I do not think we place vegetables etc., during anthyeshti, in the manner stated by you. But brahmins who can afford the expenses are required to perform "nityasraaddham" for one year commencing from the 14th. day after demise. I am given to understand that this was adhered to by the well-off and orthodox brahmins even during the 1920's and 1930's.
Every day two brahmins will be invited for the nithyasraaddham, sraaddham will be done and the two brahmins given meals with all the usual dishes customary for the family of the demised person. People who could not perform this sort of serious task for one year, used to give raw rice and kaccha plantains (அரிசி and வாழைக்காய்) to two brahmins daily; this was a mediocre way equivalent to feeding the sraaddham meals.
This has now shortened to giving அரிசி and வாழைக்காய் for a number of people on the 10th. or 11th. day as a substitute for what is required to be given daily for the next one year. I understand that according to saastram, the giving of these two items satisfies the hunger of the departed soul.
There was one Swami Krishnanda near Anand in Gujarat. He was different from most of the modern swamijis in the sense that he never went after publicity, foreign branches, money, etc., nor did he teach yoga of one sort or another. If one reads his autobiography, one will find that as a young man he was the questioning type but he met many ascetics with superhuman abilities and at last became sure of the supernatural, though he himself did not claim any such power.
This Swamiji answered a questioner who asked why we should go on feeding brahmans in order to keep our manes without hunger, more or less this way (from my memory - errors may be there):
A normal human soul with average good and bad deeds, but not extreme good or bad, will take more than 200 to 300 earth years to be born again, because it will like to enjoy all the comforts eligible due its good karmas before coming again here to face the consequences of its bad karmas. This time period will correspond to 8 to 12 generations here on earth, on the average, but our ancients have asked us to look after only 3 generations, probably because they knew that people will get fed up feeding 12 generations of forefathers, or even remembering their names!
(Some Maharshtrian brahmins still do tarpanam for 7 generations, I am told.)
I have a book about life after death written by one engineer-turned-sanyasi. There he claims he is able to sense the troubles being experienced in the spirit world by the souls. In any case, giving vegetables to the brahman priest as "daanam" is only a good deed; unlike money, which can be spent on even immoral purposes, eatables can only be used for satisfying (somebody's) hunger.