Cooking for Kṛṣṇa: Bhakti Food Contemplations in Naivedya

In this paper, I argue that the tāntric practice of offering food to the deity (naivedya) is reinterpreted within the sixteenth-century Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava tradition as a bhakti practice that infuses devotional contemplation of Kṛṣṇa into ritual and elevates such contemplation over the importance of all ritual action. I analyze how Gopāla Bhaṭṭa Gosvāmin’s framing of naivedya in Haribhaktivilāsa expands the practice from the realm of ritual worship (arcanā) into the contemplative practice of surrendering the Self (ātma-nivedana) in entirety as an offering (arpaṇaṁ) to Kṛṣṇa. This helps to reframe naivedya as devotional service (sevā), a point that is further developed by Jīva Gosvāmin in Bhakti Sandarbha. I further connect the Haribhaktivilāsa’s presentation of naivedya to Jīva Gosvāmin’s comments on food contemplations in Bhakti Sandarbha and his Durgama-saṅgamanī commentary on Bhaktirasāmṛtasindhu, which respectively emphasize the expansive devotional nature and efficacy of food contemplations in broader Kṛṣṇa-bhakti theology.