ALLIUM SATIVUM
“Eating onions and garlic adversely affects one’s consciousness,” says Sarika. “Why? Because the modes of goodness, passion, and ignorance influence every living thing – human, animal, or plant – and we learn from the Vedic literature that onions and garlic are in the lower modes of nature: passion and ignorance. In spiritual life one should cultivate the mode of goodness and avoid the lower modes in order to advance. Of course many Hindus eat onion and garlic because they are just members of Hindu religion, but not spiritual practitioners.”
Ajay continues, “Sattvic foods are rich and abundant in Prana, the universal life force. Onion, garlic and caffeine are taboo in a sattvic diet as they cause denseness in the body. According to the Vedas, sattvic foods are juicy, wholesome and pleasing to the heart, providing subtle nourishment for positive vitality. What makes sattvic food so unique and pleasurable is that all dishes are prepared and served fresh.”
Anil concludes, “As a devotee of Krishna and a practicing Bhakti-yogi, I don’t eat garlic and onions because they cannot be offered to Krishna.”
palandu lasunam sigrum alambum grjanam palam
bhunkte yo vai naro brahman vratam candrayanam caret
(Padma Purana, Brahma Khanda 19.10, spoken by Suta Gosvami)
O sages, one who eats garlic, onions, sigrum (a kind of plant), turnips, bottle gourd and meat, that person should observe a candrayana fast.
vrntakam jalisakam kusumbha smantakam tatha
palandu lasunam suklam niryasan caiva varjayet
grjanam kinsukan caiva kukundanca tathaiva ca
udumbaram alavun ca jagdhva patati vai dvijah
(Hari Bhakti Vilasa 8.158,159, from Kurma Purana)
One should not eat eggplant, banana leaves, sunflower leaves and asmantaka leaves, onions, garlic. One should not eat sour gruel (a thin watery pouriage) or the juice of the tree. One should also give up turnips and beetroots, carrots, kinsuka, forest figs, and white pumpkin. If the twice born persons eat these things, they all become fallen. By eating garlic and onion one becomes sinful and as atonement one should perform Candrayana. (Garuda Purana 1.97.3 (68-71))
Onion, shit-thriving pigs, Selu, garlic, Goplyusa (milk of a cow before the lapse of ten days from calving), Tanduliya (a grain growing in faecal rubbish) and mushrooms— all these are to be avoided. (Skanda Purana 40.9)
“Garlic and onions are both rajasic and tamasic, and are forbidden to yogis because they root the consciousness more firmly in the body”, says well-known authority on Ayurveda, Dr. Robert E. Svoboda.
Tsang-Tsze said that these pungent vegetables contain five different kinds of enzymes which cause “reactions of repulsive breath, extra-foul odour from perspiration and bowel movements, and lead to lewd indulgences, enhance agitations, anxieties and aggressiveness,” especially when eaten raw.
Bindu reinforces, “Among Hindus many people discourage eating onion and garlic along with non-vegetarian food during festivals or Hindu holy months of Shrawan and Kartik. However, shunning onion and garlic is not very popular among Hindus as compared to avoiding non-vegetarian foods, so many people do not follow this custom. Jains not only abstain from consumption of meat, but also don’t eat garlic and onions as they emit strong smells as well as root vegetables (such as carrots, potatoes, radish, turnips, etc.) as doing so kills the plant and they believe in ahimsa.”
Most Vaishnavas do not consume either onions or garlic. However in our research we find it for a varied myriad of reasons:
(i) Such foods are of the food category of Rajas and Tamas. They cause a disturbance, and even pain and sickness to those who eat them. Especially if you are not used to eating them and find them slipped into a meal – painful air, diarrhea, are often side effects – symptoms of the modes of passion and ignorance.
(ii) Such foods cannot be offered to the Deity.
(iii) Such foods impair Deity worship by their profound and even bad smell, and their repeating nature so as to effectively disqualify the sadhaka from performing Deity worship as laid down in the Hari Bhakti Vilas, and Bhaktirasamrta Sindhu (even Hing and Ginger are taboo, never mind onion and garlic) regarding making sure that such foods that repeat upon one, and that food in general is thoroughly digested before one performs the pujas.
(iv) Onion and garlic are considered to grow below the ground, and thus, tamasiki in nature, many chaste Vaishnavas would not partake of them.
(v) Such foods are not native to devotional cooking (see (i), (ii) & (iii)) being introduced from other countries (karma bhumi – outside of dharma-bhumi) like so many other things.
(vi) References to their origin as being derived of animal sacrifice, as evolved from the sin of stealing the offering and when caught for that by her husband throwing that to a distant place where due to its being impregnated with life invoking mantras took the seed form as red daal, red onion and white onion.
Onions and garlic are mentioned in various shastras as being in rajas and tamas gunas: passion and ignorance. They are supposed to promote / agitate desires, so a carefully observant Vaishnava will want to avoid the partaking of such foods. Of course, the highest principle is that we take only what Krsna and his devotees take: Prasādam. However, both of these are mentioned in Ayurveda, which one could partake of for health reasons (although for cooking we use hing / asafoetida for this flavor.) (Jayo Das, ACBSP, 1999.)
I found a few people/devotees made this modern ideal logic. Even though as stated in the earlier message of Srila Prabhupad, “EVEN for medicinal reasons we do not take (onions and garlic)”. I wonder who they offer it to then, or do they “eat verily only sin” as mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita 3:13.
SEASONED 