The Story of Lord Krishna and Avalakki( Puffed Rice )

I had promised while writing about the HuLi avalakki recipe that I would one day tell you why Indians don’t refuse anything made out of avalakki (Puffed Rice). The reason behind this goes to the times of Mahabharatha.

This is a story involving Lord Krishna and his friend Sudhama. Let me first give a brief introduction to the people involved in the story for benefit of those who are not familiar with the Hindu Mythology.

According to Hindu mythology, Lord Krishna is 8th avatar (Incarnation) of Lord Vishnu. He was born during the Dwapara Yuga. I.e. around 3000 BC. He is the central character of the great Hindu Epic The Mahabharatha. He is also considered as the author of the Bhagavad-Gita. All the Hindus revere him as the embodiment of Love and Joy.

Sudhama was a Brahmin friend of Lord Krishna. They studied together as little boys in Guru (Teacher) Sandipani’s Ashram (something similar to a residential school).

They complete their education and are ready to part ways. Before leaving the ashram, Lord Krishna will have told Sudhama to approach him if he was in any trouble and needed any help.

As time passes, Krishna becomes the King of Mathura. Sudhama is a poor Brahmin and has to feed a large family. He is so poor that his wife will have to keep borrowing from neighbors to feed the family. When the poverty becomes unbearable, Sudhama’s wife begs Sudhama to go his friend Lord Krishna and ask him for his help. Sudhama agrees to do so. However, he does not have anything in his house to take as a gift to his friend. Sudhama’s wife therefore once again borrows a handful of puffed rice from her neighbors. She prepares a snack out of it and gives this to Sudhama to take as a gift to Lord Krishna.

Sudhama takes this and goes to meet his friend with great uncertainty about how he will be treated by his friend who is now the king. Krishna receives his friend very well and accepts his friend’s offering of puffed rice with great joy saying that it is his most favorite snack.

He eats one fistful and gives him all the worldly riches. He eats another fistful and gives Sudhama everything in the after world. He goes ahead to eat another fistful, at this point, Lord Krishna’s wife Rukmini prevents him from eating and asks what about us (Wives)? Lord Krishna calls all his 16,108 wives, distributes it to them and saves one fistful for Sudhama's journey back. Wow! And Sudhama had brought only one fistful as offering to the Lord.

Although Krishna treats Sudhama as a very good friend, Sudhama is too proud to ask Lord Krishna for any help. So he goes back home without asking for anything.

He is however pleasantly surprised when he comes back home. He finds that he has been bestowed with lots of riches and his poverty has been eliminated due to Lord Krishna's grace.

This is the story of Lord Krishna’s connection with puffed rice. Now I’ll come to the part about why we Hindu’s are not supposed to refuse anything made out of puffed rice. You guys must have guessed it by now!! Yes, it is because it is Lord Krishna’s favorite snack! :).

Naturally there is this question of why is Puffed Rice Lord Krishna’s favorite snack.
That is because, no rice plant can grow from puffed rice, unlike regular rice grain, which can grow into rice plants if sowed into the ground. Therefore, puffed rice is like Moksha (i.e. you are relieved from the cycle of birth and death). And Lord Krishna is the one who grants Moksha. It is a symbolic way of putting this point across.

I’m sure there may be many questions in your minds after having read this. Let me know your questions and I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability!

Note: I have added a few more things apart from what I had originally written. One of my very good friend’s gave me more insight into the story. I thought it would be very interesting to know for you guys also.