thumb|A partially-eaten plate of Indian food. The food on the plate is called Uchchhishta (noun). The plate is said to be Uchchhishta (adjective). Uchchhishta (, , ), known by various regional terms, is an Indian and a Hindu concept related to the contamination of food by saliva. Though the term has various meanings and has no exact parallel in English, it is generally translated in English as "leftovers" or "leavings", but with a denigratory aspect. Uchchhishta frequently denotes the food scraps remaining after a person has eaten. In a broader sense, it refers to the contamination of a food o
thumb|A partially-eaten plate of Indian food. The food on the plate is called Uchchhishta (noun). The plate is said to be Uchchhishta (adjective). Uchchhishta (, , ), known by various regional terms, is an Indian and a Hindu concept related to the contamination of food by saliva. Though the term has various meanings and has no exact parallel in English, it is generally translated in English as "leftovers" or "leavings", but with a denigratory aspect. Uchchhishta frequently denotes the food scraps remaining after a person has eaten. In a broader sense, it refers to the contamination of a food or hand that has come in contact with saliva or the inside of the mouth. A person or plate is said to be uchchhishta after coming into contact with uchchhishta food. Uchchhishta food, people and utensils are considered to be ritually impure. A person can become purified by washing their hand (Hindus traditionally eat with their fingers) and mouth.
It is highly disrespectful to offer uchchhishta food to someone, however exceptions exist for food from socially superior individuals, and others. While such offerings to Hindu divinities are forbidden in classical Hinduism, some heterodox Tantric deities are worshipped with the offering.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).