Subhashita #0027

Vaishnava culture and Indian culture in general is famous for its hospitality towards guests. As devotees, we are expected to feed our guests royally, sumptuously and without any reservations. If we act in a miserly way while feeding guests who come to our home or to the temple, it reflects badly on vaiṣṇava culture and annoys the Lord. A guest is a representative of all the gods, and especially a vaiṣṇava guest is considered as the representative of the Supreme Lord.

On a particular day, a temple organized a feast where varieties of rice, dāl, vegetables etc. were being served. One particular devotee was in-charge of serving pure golden colored ghee on the rice.

Now since pure ghee is an expensive food-item, this devotee wanted to save as much ghee as possible. Thus, he would serve only a few drops on each plate.

A poet was sitting in one of the rows. When the poet saw the tiny amount of ghee being served on his plate, he quickly composed the following witty Sanskrit poem:

sañcāriṇī kāñcana-vallarīva
vidyul-latā vā patitā nabhastaḥ
ghṛtasya dhārā patitā na jāne
divaṁ gatā vā 'tha bhuvaṁ gatā vā

"[The poet said to the ghee-server]: O my goodness! What was that? Was that a golden chain running away from me? Or was that a golden flash of lightning falling from the sky? That stream of golden ghee, where did it go? Did it disappear in the sky or did it enter the earth? [Wherever it went, I am pretty sure that it did not fall on my plate of rice] :-) ".
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— (Composed by an unknown author. Inspired from a Marathi poem composed by Keśava-suta).