The Psychology of Taking Prasad

The most common meaning of the word Prasad is food-remains of a god or a superior person. The word has also other meanings, such as purity, healthiness, a feeling of gladness, favor. These latter meanings may be considered the effects of taking Prasad, and may be regarded as secondary attributes arising out of the first meaning. The taking of Prasad produces in the eater the qualities of purity, healthiness and feeling of gladness; by the act he gains spiritual favor, for it is equivalent to raising the deity to the parental level.

Fortuitously, I got a deeper insight into the psychology of Prasad from a case of mine. The patient was a middle-aged man, suffering from a neurosis with predominantly cardiac disturbances. He was the second son in the family, with three younger brothers, the last of whom was ten years his junior. One of his complaints was that though his mother loves him and he loves her in turn, she does not like to stay with his family. He had had a violent temper during childhood and mentioned beating his elder brother with a stick and attacking his father one day because he rebuked him. After his father's death, his uncle became his guardian and married him to a girl of the uncle's selection. He lived in the joint family for two or three years and then was separated from the joint property by his uncle, against whom he had a grievance, claiming that he cheated his mother and him. His hatred for the uncle, and also for his elder brother who sided with the latter, fell upon his wife, because she had been married to him by his uncle and his elder brother. He left her and went to Calcutta with a number of boys, with the idea of doing some patriotic work for the mother-land. The patient, who was a handsome young man, attracted a prostitute in the city. She became his financial helper and ensnared him into intimate relations with her. She felt such a passion for him that she took to excessive drinking whenever he had not visited her for a day,