Commensality

commensality means eating at the same table (mensa).... Commensality often conveys a more restrictive notion .... Commensality in India refers to the beliefs, practices, rules and regulations

One of the striking manifestations of human sociality is commensality: humans tend to eat together or, to put it more exactly, to eat in groups. In literal sense, commensality means eating at the same table (mensa), or a wider definition is “commensality eating with other people”. 

Throughout time and in all parts of the world, humans have eaten together socially. Commensality, eating and drinking together, is fundamentally a social activity, which creates and cements bonds which define our place in society. Covering prehistoric archeology, to medieval banquets, to the inaugural dinner of the American President to everyday commensality as we eat in our homes, with friends, in religious ceremonies and as a form of political activism, this rich collection provides a unique exploration of commensality. Commensality originated with the incoming of Aryans and suggests that endogamy was more likely to have been the contribution of the local people.

Commensality often conveys a more restrictive notion than simply eating with other people. It can involve a sense of sharing food habitually, with an assumption of some degree of dependence of one or several of the commensal parties upon another or some degree of reciprocal commitment/involvement. Commensality is both inclusive and exclusive: it creates and/or sanctions inclusion (even transient inclusion) in a group or community, as well as exclusion of those not taking part. It can manifest equality (around the fire or a round table) or hierarchy (who gets served first or sits at the ‘high table’). It provides the script or a template for many or most of human eating occurrences.

Commensality in India refers to the beliefs, practices, rules and regulations that determine inter-caste relationships and are observed with regard to the kind of food and water taken. Commensality also refers to restrictions on eating and drinking. Detailed rules are laid down with regard to the kind of food that can be accepted by a person from different castes. According to Blunt there are seven important taboos in this respect: 

• Commensal taboo, which determines rules regarding persons in whose company a man may eat;
•  Cooking taboo, which lays down rules regarding persons who may cook food that a man may eat;
• Eating taboo, which prescribes rituals to be observed at the time of eating;
•  Drinking taboo, which prescribes rules regarding accepting water etc., from other persons;
•  Food taboo, which prescribes rules regarding the kind of food (kachcha, pacca, green vegetables, etc.) a man may eat with members of other castes. Brahmins do not consume onion, garlic, cabbage, carrot, beat root, etc., eating of beef is also not allowed;
• Smoking taboo, which lays down rules regarding persons whose pipe a man may smoke; and
• Vessels taboo, which determines the types of vessels to be used or avoided for cooking food to protect oneself from being polluted.

Blunt believes that the commensality restriction is the result of marriage restriction and on the basis of the severity of the food taboo; he classified castes into five groups:

•  Castes which takes the kachcha (cooked with water) and pacca (cooked with ghee) food cooked only by a member of their own endogamous group;
• Castes which eat food cooked by the members of own caste and also by Brahmins;
• Castes which take food cooked by the members of own caste or by Brahmins or by Rajputs;
• Castes which take food cooked by the members of own caste or by Brahmins or Rajputs or by lower castes of rank which they regard as at least equal to their own; and
• Castes which eat food cooked by almost anyone.

In the last few decades, things have been gone various changes and we find that these commensal restrictions are no longer rigidly observed, though very rarely these restrictions are followed  by few orthodox people of India throughout the country. Thus we can say that there is a change in the commensal characteristic of the caste system.

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To know more you can visit these significant topics:
The Development of Literacy and Schooling, Indian State, State, Indian Society, Religion, Marriage, kinship System, Social Institution, Types of Marriage, Family, Community, Indology, Social Movement, Bride Wealth (Price), Nation State

Reference:

• Ram Ahuja, Indian Social System.  
•  Variouis

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