Neem Jaggery philosophy, a peek into ugadi
Bēvu Bella: The Dialectics of Sweetness and Bitterness The festival of Ugadi, marked by the ritual of consuming bēvu bella—a symbolic mixture of neem and jaggery—embodies the profound Vedantic truth encapsulated in the Bhagavad Gita (2.15): "O Arjun, noblest amongst men, that person who is not affected by happiness and distress, and remains steady in both, becomes eligible for liberation." This wisdom, like a dialectical synthesis, bridges the transient and the eternal. The neem signifies the inevitable bitterness of suffering, while the jaggery represents the fleeting sweetness of joy. Their confluence is not merely a culinary tradition but a philosophical axiom—one that aligns with the Hegelian notion that history and experience progress through contradiction and resolution. The Mahabharata, that grand theatre of dharma and adharma, underscores this truth through the lives of its protagonists. Yudhishthira, the paragon of dharma, faces the harsh vicissitudes of exile, war, ...