Digital Offerings and the Virtualization of Ritual Food: Rethinking Death Practices in the Age of Technology

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_7How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Digital Rituals; Food Symbolism; Hindu Death Practices; Virtual Offerings; Diaspora

Abstract

Food is an integral part of human life. The type of food, method of its preparation, and the way of its consumption tell a lot about a culture and tradition. In Hinduism, after the death of a family member, people show grief and remembrance through food. Rituals like Pind-daan, where rice balls are offered to the deceased, represent the family’s aspiration to nourish the ancestors. Food is the only medium that connects the living with the dead.

However, in modern times, such practices are either diminishing or have experienced a substantial transformation. These changes are the result of migration and technological mediation. The families who have migrated to far off places are increasingly turning to digital platforms to perform the death rituals. Digital platforms provide them the option to perform the death ritual of their family member at sacred places like Gaya or at the ghats of Varanasi.

This study is focused on such practices like “digital food rituals” to examine this shift from the physical rituals to digital rituals. It will focus on the shifting meaning of ritual food relating it with the contemporary time where virtual representations may partially or completely replace physical presence. The study is based on three methodological approaches: (1) textual analysis of Garuda Purana and Bhagavad Gita, as they provide the guidelines for Hindu death rituals, (2) ethnographic observation of Gaya and Varanasi where priests offer digital death rituals services, (3) semi-structured interviews of few families who participated in digital death practices.

This study asks pivotal questions: Will there be a time when the digital offerings will replace the material and sensory elements of food completely? How do families be able to balance technological mediation with spiritual authenticity? What will be the impact on ecology and community when the materiality of the ritual food get transferred to the virtual domain. This study interrogates the interwoven relationship between tradition and modernity, loss and continuity and presence and absence.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Shashi Pathak
AU  - Richa Mishra
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
TI  - Digital Offerings and the Virtualization of Ritual Food: Rethinking Death Practices in the Age of Technology
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Emerging Food Studies: Intersections of Culture, Science and Sustainability (ICEFS 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 57
EP  - 67
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_7
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-583-6_7
ID  - Pathak2026
ER  -