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Commensality, caste, an important criterion of the extent of a caste in India and its relative ranking in the local community. One of the central features of the caste system of traditional Hindu society is the degree to which mutual dining restrictions are observed among the caste groups of a community. Under cornmensality fall two related, though distinct, forms of social behaviour: the actual eating together at the same occasion, the same time, and the same table; and the giving and accepting by caste groups of different foods.
In its strict sense, a group is commensal if its members accept cooked food from each other’s kitchens and also that which is prepared by each other’s members. As dining out is not a widespread social phenomenon, the occasions for true commensality are infrequent. A typical occasion is a caste or subcaste event, such as a wedding. If, however, a higher caste member is invited, pains are taken that the specific food items attain to the degree of purity he ordinarily maintains; hence, such feasts are often prepared by Brahmin cooks. If rank differences between castes are too wide, the higher caste person either refuses to take the food or is served separately; a lower caste person invited by the caste similarly is served separately or at a different time. In the same wedding context, if a marriage is hypergamous, the bridegroom being of a higher caste, he and his family may initially show reluctance to accept food and be persuaded by a present from the bride’s father; the latter will accept nothing in return but the higher status bestowed on the bride by the hypergamy.
Food in northern India is essentially of two kinds: raw (kacca) and well-cooked (pakka). Raw food is freely interchangeable; a Brahmm officiating at a ritual will accept his fee in kind in the form of raw ingredients. This may take the form of the raw ingredients for the festive meal itself, which he is then left to cook for himself, since his patron’s kitchen may not be considered sufficiently pure to allow him to take a prepared meal from it.
Similarly acceptable are fruits and nuts. The basic staples, rice or flour cakes, are kacca dishes, the quality of purity of which is more vulnerable to degrees of pollution, and these foods are less readily accepted. More acceptable are dishes that have been prepared with dairy products (pakk) or cooked in ghee (clarified butter), because the gifts of a cow have a purifying influence. Water is fairly freely accepted, except in southern India, where caste exchanges are generally far more restricted. In southern India, too, the variety of foodstuffs that can be the object of gift and acceptance is far more restricted.
The acceptance of food provides a clear index of the hierarchy in a given community. At the top of this hierarchy are orthodox Brahmins, who might not accept food even from members of their own lineage when they are engaged in certain ritual undertakings. Lower castes may offer food if it has been prepared by a Brahmin cook. These castes themselves admire the purity of Brahrnin cooking, hence many restaurant keepers in the cities are Brahmins, and Brahmin coffeehouses and restaurants abound. Generally, the flesh of cows is banned for the caste Hindu. Pork is the next item to be banned. The higher the caste, the greater the abhorrence felt or professed for the eating of animals, which is looked upon as the consumption of cadavers.
Although there is an element of dietary hygiene discernible in the commensal restrictions, the overall effect is to demarcate degrees of purity and pollution of caste groups in a community. The restrictions are dictated by a group’s desire to maintain, or gain, a higher degree of ritual purity. See also pollution, Hindu.
