Annapoorna
It all starts with an argument between Shiva and Parvathi, about spirituality and materialism. Shiva who is a yogi, goes on and on about materials being just an illusion and how sprituality trumps materialism. Parvati, who is also the goddess of (food) materials, takes offence and walks off in a huff. In fact she disappears from the world. This leads to wide spread famine among the Gods as well as immortals. Shiva too is not spared of the intense hunger. He comes to know that a single kitchen at Kashi, is providing food and everyone is making a bee-line for it. He joins the queue, and eventually realizes that it is Parvati that is providing food for the multitudes. And, he is supposed to have learnt his lesson. The goddess is known as Annapoorna, in this form.
Other instances of divine feeding that come to my mind are, when Jesus feeds thousands with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Also, when Yaweh provides Manna and quail to Moses and his followers in the desert, during their exodus from Egypt.
The true materialists, were the Charvakas who were an interesting philosophical group that were supposed to have been in India around 600 BC. They believed only in that, that were experienced by the senses, and did not burden themselves with the existence of anything beyond that like God, afterlife etc., very similar to the Epicurean philosophy that came about later (300 BC) in Greece. They can be considered as the rationalists of the time, who lost ground to the religious orders of the time like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Their scriptures known as the Brahaspati sutras are lost (probably destroyed) and only information about them is obtained through their vilification in the scriptures of other religious orders.
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