By Byomakesh Biswal
Puri, Dec 5 (IANS) With 350 vegetarian items on the menu, it was a feast for the gods at the Vaishnavite seminary Radhashyam Math in this Hindu holy town on the Orissa coast. It happens every year, but the seminary outdid itself this week as hundreds of devotees and other visitors sat cross-legged on the floor and lapped up the feast from specially designed leaf plates.

For over 100 years, the seminary has been organising this feast in the holy month of Margasira according to the Oriya calendar. Devotees of Lord Krishna believe that on this day Yashoda had offered different type of delicacies to Lord Krishna.

“All of us know that Lord Krishna was a great lover of food. We have been observing Byanjan Dwadashi to celebrate the day as mother Yashoda had offered a number of delicacies to Lord Krishna,” Sarada Prasanna Pradhan, secretary of the Goura Vihar Trust which run the seminary, told IANS.

This year the annual feast has been arranged in a grand way to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the visit to Orissa of Sri Chaitanya, the founder of the Vaishnav Bhakti movement in the Middle Ages.

“We arrange this Byanjan Dwadasi in the Radhashyam Math every year but this year we have arranged it in a grand way including more than 350 items in the menu,” said Bishnu Das, a member of the seminary.

The menu included over 80 types of chutneys, 15 rice dishes, more than 15 types of dal, more than 100 curries, fries and different types of sweets.

“It is also an attempt to preserve the great food tradition of our Maths. We try to include the large number of sweets which were served in the Maths in the past,” said Subala Charan Das, chief adviser to the trust.

The food is not only vegetarian, there are other restrictions too. There is no garlic, onion, carrot or beet. The cooks fast for a day before entering the kitchen. Once the meal is ready, it is first offered to Lord Krishna and then served to everyone present.

It needs a special kind of leaf to stitch together a plate big enough for the feast. Artisans in Orissa’s southern Ganjam district make them specially for this feast, using leaves of a tree known locally as Siali. The plates are woven in the shape of a lotus or another flower.

“Our family has been providing these paper plates to the Math for many generations. I prepare these plates for the whole year for the Math,” said Basanti Achari of Ganjam district.

The seminary plans to have a 500-item menu next year and thus enter the record books.

(Byomakesh Biswal can be contacted at byomakesh.b@ians.in)