Appaḷappaṭṭu · written for his mother, who wanted help in the kitchen

The appalam recipe

Alagammal asked her son to come and grind the black gram. He sent her this instead. Every ingredient is what actually goes into the dough, and every one of them is also a stage of practice.

Five ingredients on the left, each joined by an arrow to what it stands for on the right; below, the five actions of making an appalam in sequence, each labelled with the stage of practice it corresponds to Five ingredients on the left, each joined by an arrow to what it stands for on the right; below, the five actions of making an appalam in sequence, each labelled with the stage of practice it corresponds to. In the bowl What it is uḷuntu — black gram the conceit that says ‘I’ piraṇṭai juice satsaṅga cumin and pepper śama and dama one cooling, one hot calm of mind, restraint of sense salt uparati draws the water out the turning away asafoetida vāsanā the rankest thing in the house and the last habit to leave Then grind pound roll flat fry eat it enquiry inward-turned evenness fire of knowing yourself, as yourself
The mapping is exact in both directions, which is the whole joke and the whole teaching: nothing was added to the recipe to make it fit the doctrine, and nothing was dropped from the doctrine to make it fit the recipe. The one pun that cannot survive English is vāsanā — in Tamil the same word is a smell and a latent tendency.