Ayambil Meal: Boiled Moong and Plain Roti

Ayambil is the austere meal of Jain practice: one sitting, one meal, cooked without salt, oil, ghee, milk, curd, sugar, spices, fruit or green vegetables, and taken with boiled water. It is kept on its own as a vow, and nine days in a row in the Navpad Oli, twice a year. This page gives a plain home version for the meal. It is not a recipe in the usual sense, because the point of ayambil is what is left out.

The vow is set out on the fasting ladder, and the nine days on the Navpad Oli page. Rules differ by sangh and by teacher, so treat this page as a general guide, not the rule of your own upashray.

Serves: 1 to 2. Time: 45 minutes.

What the meal contains

• Whole wheat flour for plain roti or rotli
• Whole moong, boiled
• Plain boiled rice, if your sangh permits it
• Boiled water for drinking

Many ayambil menus use a single grain and a single pulse. Some add boiled chickpeas, boiled urad or a thin boiled dal. Salt is omitted by tradition in the strictest form, though a few communities allow a small amount of black pepper. Check which your own teacher allows.

Method

1. Moong: wash 1/2 cup of whole green moong and soak for two hours. Boil in plenty of fresh water until soft, about 25 minutes, with nothing added. Drain, keeping the water to drink if you like.
2. Roti: knead 1 cup of whole wheat flour with water alone, nothing else. Rest for 10 minutes. Roll thin and cook on a dry, hot griddle, turning twice, without oil. Press the edges with a cloth so it puffs.
3. Rice, if used: wash 1/2 cup of rice and boil in water alone until soft. Drain.
4. Water: the water is filtered, then boiled and cooled to drinking temperature. This is the water of the whole meal and of the day.
5. Serve on a plate and eat slowly in a single sitting, in silence if possible, then wash the plate with the day’s boiled water.

Why it follows the rules

Six items are left out. The tradition names six foods that give taste and richness: milk, curd, ghee, oil, sugar or jaggery, and fried food, with salt and spices alongside. Ayambil removes them so that the tongue is not pleased and the mind can rest. This is a discipline of taste, not a diet, and it is kept as part of austerity (tapas).

Boiled water. Water is strained through a cloth and boiled, in the tradition’s practice, so that the tiny beings in it are not drunk. Boiled water is also kept only for a limited period, with the hours depending on the season.

One sitting. In Jain practice a person who has taken the vow does not rise and return to eat again, and food is taken before sunset.

The nine days of the Oli

In the Navpad Oli, the ayambil is kept for nine days, from the seventh day of the bright half of the month to the full moon, in Chaitra and Ashvina. Each day is given to one of the nine posts of the Siddhachakra and, in many places, to a different colour and grain: for example, wheat on one day and moong on another, as in the list at the temple. These details vary by community, so follow the schedule your sangh publishes.

Notes for a first ayambil

• Prepare the day before: flour, moong and the water for the next day.
• Eat before sunset. The Pachkhan time calculator gives chauvihar for your city.
• If you are pregnant, unwell, elderly or on medicine, ask your doctor before taking any fast or austere meal, and talk to your teacher about an easier form.
• A person who finds the bland diet hard on the first day is not failing. Many keep it for years before it feels easy.

Related

• Jain recipes: the rules and the dishes
• Navpad Oli dates
• Paryushan fasting: every level
• Moong dal khichdi
• Pachkhan time calculator

Frequently asked questions