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across the Konkan and Kanara coast-strip, the whole of which was now in his hands. He, on his part, depended on Bombay for salt.

In January 1678, as we learn from a Surat letter, "for Shivaji's former debt, they [i.e, the Rajapur factors] are forced to take betel nuts as Shivaji's ministers will rate it at." (F. R., Surat, 89.) But even thus the indemnity was not paid. The Surat Council, in April, May and July, express their indignation at the deceitful fair promises of Shivaji's ministers and that Rajah's evasion of the demands made upon him, and decide to withdraw the factories at Karwar, Hubli and Rajapur, if matters did not improve. (Ibid.) On 18th March 1680 Bombay writes to Surat, "we are very glad the management of the business with Shivaji is to your liking. He hath confirmed all ... A hundred khandi of betel nut is sent us on account of our demand for satisfaction of the two vessels lost." (F. R. Surat, 108.) On 5th April following the Rajah died.

Shivaji never paid the promised indemnity as long as he lived, and the Rajapur factory was closed in Shambhuji's reign (December 1682 or January 1683.) (F. R. Surat, 91.)

VI-Sugar Industry in Ancient India.

By Rai Bahadur Joges Chandra Ray, M.A.

In view of the present efforts to increase the total output of sugar in the country it may be useful to glance at the industry in ancient times. My information is meagre, but sufficient to indicate some of the broad facts. It will be seen that, as in other industries so in this, there has not been any marked improvement since remote times. As a result of the study, however, two facts of great importance at the present moment come out for special notice, viz. the suitability of Bihar and Northern Bengal including the western portion of Assam for the cultivation of sugarcane, and the desirability of preparing the gud of Hindi instead of the gud of Bengali for home consumption. The reader is requested to note the difference between the two products which are often confounded. The guḍ of Hindi is the same as the gul of Marathi. It is the dried-up juice of the cane without any attempt at crystallization; while the gud of Bengal and Orissa is generally a mixture of liquid molasses and solid crystals. The proportion of these two of course varies; but unless there is some solid in the form of crystals large enough to be easily seen, the product is not guḍ. Hence the confusion. To avoid it I shall use the word gur, as is sometimes done by European writers, to denote the Bengal gud. But more of this later on.

2. The Sanskrit word for sugar, whether refined or not, is sarkara. In fact, the word, sugar, is no other than the Arabic sakar and Hindi sakkar, an easy corruption of the Sanskrit word. In the Vedas it denotes 'gritty particles', a meaning retained in later Sanskrit literature in which the word came to denote also sugar on account of its crystals. Unless the substance is crystalline, it is not surkarā. We may go further and assert that the crystals

must be small, say, as small as sand grains. When these are large, as in candy, the word upa'a which usually denotes crystalline quartz, is used in Sanskrit. The history of these two wordsimplies that the knowledge of converting saccharine juice into the crystalline form was much later than the Vedas.

3. In fact there is no mention of any saccharine substance in the Vedas other than honey. The latter being a natural product requiring no preparation, as it naturally came into use. There occurs, however, the word, ikshu, 'sugarcane', in the Vedas, and there was a very ancient family of the name of Ikshvāku celebrated in the Rāmāyaṇa. The question arises whether the Vedic Aryans cultivated the cane or knew it as a weed. The latter hypothesis falls to the ground if we assume that they inhabited the Punjab or even the United Provinces when they came to know the cane. For, though the original home of the plant is unknown, it could not be there, the plant preferring hot and humid climate as in Eastern Bengal. (See also Decandolle.) Therefore we conclude that the Vedic Aryans while living in the west of Northern India cultivated sugarcane. No one appears to have traced the reason of the family name of Ikshvāku. I suggest that the ancestor of the family had a sugarcane plantation, probably extensive, and his descendants thus came to be known as of the family of the sugarcane planter.*

We do not know whether the cane used to be chewed merely, or pressed, or whether its juice dried up for future use.

The

Cf. the word, ikshvāku, ‘a tw.ning plant'. It is so-called because it surrounds the sugarcane, i.e., twines round it. See Amara-kosh and its annotations. A similar derivation may be easily given to denote one who fences round the cane (to secure it against the ravages of its enemies). I am aware that this is a startling suggestion, chiefly because we never thought of the word, ikshu, occurring in the Vedas, and because the dignity of the family is lowered if we assume it to have originated from a sugarcane planter. But some of the Vedic Aryans must surely have been cultivators. The word ikshu is derived from the root, ish' to desire'; the people longed for it on account of its sweet juice. Compare also ishika and ishu, a reed, hence an arrow'; isha, 'one possessed of sap', hence the morth of āśvina, because it was a wet month. So to the Aryans of old ikshu was a rced possessing a sap which was desired. In Persian it is nui sakar, a reed of sugar'. Strabo, the Greek geographer (1 B.C.), vaguely described the plant as the Indian honey-bearing reed.

absence of words to denote a press, ikshu-yantra, or extraction of the juice cannot be taken to indicate that the knowledge did not extend beyond the plant. We have, however, positive evidence of the cultivation of the plant and manufacture of guda in the Sútra works (e.g., Baudhāyana Sūtra, 1,5,140 and 142) and also in Panini. We therefore conclude that India has been cultivating sugarcane and preparing guda for at least three thousand years.

4. Guḍa, as we shall presently see, was the inspissated juice of the sugarcane. There was evidently some sort of machine for the extraction of the juice. We do not know what it was like. But once the juice was obtained it was observed that it does not keep sweet, and the easy solution of the difficulty was found in evaporation by heat. Guda was thus the first product of the manufacture in the earliest times.

5. This fact explains why the injunction is to use guda when honey is not available. In worshipping the deities and offering oblations to the ancestors, and in fact in all Hindu rituals and semi-rituals honey is preferred, and next to it guda, because I fancy the latter was the earliest substitute known. Those who know anything of the reason of the preference of certain articles in Hindu rituals will understand why sugary products other than guda are not permissible. The old in all countries hold their sway even when better substitutes are known.

6. At the time and in the country of Charaka (6th century B. c.?) two varieties of sugarcane were known, viz. paundraka and vamsaka. The first name has undoubtedly given rise to the modern vernacular names of paundia, paunda, pundi, puri, etc., a celebrated variety cultivated in almost all parts of the country. It is as good for chewing as for pressing and manufacture of guda and other products. The name, vamsaka, of the other variety has probably given vamsi of the Bombay Presidency.

7. The name, paundraka, leads us to a remarkable piece of history. It is asserted by all commentators of Sanskrit lexicons that the variety is so named because it used to be grown in the country called Pundra, or Northern Bengal. It was a country

inhabited by the Paundrakas. Manu says that the people were originally military, but became degraded on account of their change of occupation. The caste is now known as Puḍā and Pod in Benga!, and is mainly agricultural. A pertinent question arises here:-Did the name of the country give its name to the cane, or the name of the cane to the country ? Either was possible. We know plants whose names have been derived from those of the places from which they were first obtained. This is natural, and we may say that the paundra cane derived its name from that of the country in which it was first found by the Aryans. On the other hand, there are instances of the name of places having originated from some striking natural features. This is common enough in all languages. Why was the country, Pundra, so called? Etymologists tell us that the word is derived from the root pund, to pound', ' to reduce to powder' (cf. the words, pound' and ' powder'). From this we infer that there was something in the country which used to be cut or pounded and possibly something which used to be reduced to powder, which attracted the notice of the Aryans who first went there. There appears therefore just a possibility of the country having been named from the fact of its possessing sugarcane plantations. In his Sanskrit-English Dictionary, Monier Williams gives the following meanings of the word, paundra which is written also as paund raka: a species of sugarcane of a pale straw colour; a particular mixed caste of hereditary sugarboilers; name of a people. The second meaning points to the fact that the name of the country had some connection with the paunda cane. In fact we learn from the same authority that pundra denoted "the country of the sugarcane". We do not know how the cane was pressel. But it is curious to note that at places in the District of Rangpur, and, I am informed, of also Benares, the juice is extracted even now in oil-mills, known as ghani. This must be a relic of the past when the cane used to be cut into small pieces and pressed as oil-seeds. The roller crushing machine appears to have been invented later, probably when cotton cultivation extended and required a suitable ginning machine,

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