India’s culinary heritage makes it to the list of most sophisticated around the world. Rich concoctions, mysterious aromas, and colors that satiate the gut - the fine art of preparing an Indian meal is based on the principles of Ayurveda, a balanced serving of nutrition in your plate. Paka Darpana is a composition of 700+ verses and 11 chapters, written originally by King Nala (among the best cook from ancient India) from the Nisidha Kingdom. This book by DR. MADHULIKA translates the Sanskrit secrets of cookery for you into English.
The mass. of Pakadarpana, procured from the Saraswati Bhavan Library of Sampurnanad Sanskrit University, Varanasi, contains 24 folios. There is no full stop or coma to separate one verse from another. Having seen the subject matter, we have divided the whole manuscript in eleven chapters (Pariccheda). In every chapter, we have put the serial number of the slokas. Though, the Pakadarpana of Nala is published with Hindi translation which lacks many verses are to be included. It seems that the editor has not consulted the original manuscript.
Rendering of the Sanskrit Texts has been done in Hindi and English both. Parsing (anvaya) of every sloka is given in order to make the reading easy and lucidly accurate.
Various notes of geographical importance have been appended. Efforts have been made to identify all the pot-herbs and their Botanical names are also included.
First chapter is very lengthy and deals. The setup of the works along with various preparations of vegetables covering leaves and fruits both. It deals with five categories of food, pulses, rice and meat.
Chapter second deals with the six seasons, regiments to be observed therein, animals and birds to be used as food in various seasons.
Third chapter is devoted to the special preparations known as Bhaksyaraja and other dishes 16 containing eggs.
Fourth chapter is devoted to the preparations of Payasa (modern khir) made of garlic and wheat-corns. This chapter also includes soft beverages like phalapuspa panaka. The colophon also mentions the well known preparation Rasala.
Fifth chapter presents the process, preparation varieties and properties of soft beverage and they were kept in Pugapatta (a cloth pasted with the scum of betal nut) instead of glass wares of golden or silver pots.
Chapter six narrates the process and properties of various soups (yusa).
Seventh chapter deals with process & properties of various Ghrtannapaka, Sayannapaka with tamarind, Kaitarya, mustard and curd.
In chapter eight, there is a description of lickable preparations of mango etc. With process and properties.
Chapter nine deals with the process of cooling, fragranting and making the delicious.
Chapter ten describes the process of preparations and properties of Ksirapaka. It is different from modern Khira in which a very small quantity of rice is mixed and cooked. Here, milk is condensed in fire.
The last eleventh chapter describes the process of preparing curd from milk.
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