SPICES IN ANCIENT INDIA

HISTORY OF SPICES IN INDIA
Spices in ancient India:
In India the most ancient recorded history is found in the Rig-Veda and the other Vedas. However, these records were not written, but were handed down from generation to generation without the loss of single syllabi through the medium of human memory, carefully cultivated for the purpose. Such a system was adopted probably because the ancient Indo – Aryans believed that except human mind everything else is perishable, and that the ancient vedic seers were convinced of the superiority of human mind over matter. Rig Veda is regarded as the oldest book of the entire world (Morris, 1963), the compilation period is generally regarded as from 6500 BC to 4700 BC.

Yajur Veda mentions the use of sesame and pipali (the long pepper of today, which was used probably by those people to add pungency and flavour to their food) and Atharva Veda prescribes the use of turmeric to charm away jaundice. Turmeric was called ‘hiranmayi’ as well as rajni and was prescribed for the treatment of leprosy (Griffth, 1916). During the compilation period of Atharva Veda, use of sesame had become very common and is mentioned repeatedly. Jeanine Auboyar in his classical work ‘Daily Life in Ancient India’ mentioned that the Vedic people practiced irrigated agriculture and that they grew rice, sugarcane and sesame. Ancient history tells us that a sect of ancient Aryans called ‘Panis’ migrated south and eventually reached the south west coast and settled down there. The intermingling of ‘Panis’ and the Dravidians of the South might have resulted in the gradual evolution of a mixed race in the West Coast. ‘Panis’ were expert ship builders and sea travelers and they migrated from there to the Middle East (Babylonia). It is believed that the Aryan crops including sesame reached the West Coast and the Middle East through the Panis.

There is a view that these migrants had sown the seeds of the Sumarian civilization. Hall (1960) says, “Long back the Sumarians were a branch of Dravidians. Extensive travel by sea, in very early times, can explain the possibility of colonizing the Mesopotanian valley on one side and Indian Archipelago on the other”. Humayun Kabir states that “The Indus civilization spread westwards from the Indian Basin till it reached the banks of Euphrates and Tigris around 3500 BC”. The ‘Panis’ were the medium through whom the merchandise and crops from the Indian basin (Sapta sindhu, the home land of the Indo-Aryans) reached the southern West Coast and from there to the Middle East. The various spices might have reached the Middle East through the above route.

Saffron is mentioned often in the ancient texts. This was indicated as an offering to a Brahmin guest by a householder and that the arghya should contain sesame among other things. Yajnavalkya Samhitha has reference on turmeric. Taitreya Samhitha names the ingredients to be poured in the sacrificial fire lit on the occasion of a marriage ceremony: “Perfumes like musk, saffron, agar, sandalwood, cardamom, nutmeg and mace, and the sweets to be used by the newly weds during their nuptial nights must have aphrodisiacs like musk and saffron, one gram each, mace and nutmeg two grams each, to be added to sweets made out of two pounds of butter fat” (Mahendru, 1982).

Spices were mentioned more frequently in the writings of the epic period, and hence they might have been in use more widely. The epic period stretches from 4000 BC to almost 2000 BC, or even up to 1400 BC according to certain estimates. Valmiki’s Ramayana mentioned spices used in the preparation of certain dishes. There were also references of turmeric used for the worship of Gauri (the goddess), for dyeing the sacred thread worn by the Brahmins and also for making kumkum (vermilion). It was common practices among people to put kumkum mark on the forehead as a sign of auspiciousness, but it was an indispensible item for all ladies to put on their forehead. The higher cast people often used saffron, while the others used turmeric powder mixed with lime. In the ‘Krishna Avtara’ legend mention has been made on the use of turmeric as a body unguent and of the saffron mark on the forehead for auspiciousness. Udhava, Krishna’s childhood friend, narrates how the Naga women get their golden complexion by the use of turmeric paste. There was also description how the lady attendants of Draupadi smears her body with turmeric paste before the royal bath prior to the Swayamvar ceremony. A kumkum mark on the forehead was unavoidable for all Aryan tribes. This kumkum was made by mixing turmeric and lime powder or limewater.

The movement of crops - including spices, in the ancient India cannot be charted out accurately. There are references in the Mahabharatha that kings from far off places (including Rome) coming to the Emperor Yudhishtira with precious gifts on the occasion of Rajasuya Yajna at Indraprastha. Such references indicate that the prewar kingdom of the Pandavas extended to overseas also. Seeds of various crops including spices might have been exchanged during those days. Many of our seed spices growing in India might have reached here in that way. However another hypothesis is the movement of various crops including spices together with or subsequently of the invasion of Alexander the Great. Subsequent to this invasion there were historical records indicating frequent movement of men and materials from India to the Macedonia and other Mediterranean region and from there to India.

The post epic period of Indian history stretches from almost 1500 BC to 600 BC. This was the period of the famous ancient physicians - Charaka and Susrutha. Charaka’s magnum opus, ‘Charaka Samhita’, has many references on the use of spices in medicine - such as asafoetida, pepper, sweet basil, cinnamon and myrrah. “Spices such as cloves and cardamom should be wrapped in betel leaves with betelnuts and chewed after meals to increase salivation and aid digestion. All foetid odours shall disappear as the breath becomes fragrant”. In Sushrutha’s classic, Sushruth Samhita, references are available on the use of spices in surgery. Rosengarten (1969) writes:

“Sushruth the elder recommended that the bed sheets of a patient as well as the side room where an operation was to be performed be fumigated with pungent vapours of white mustard, bedellium, and other aromatic plants to ward off malignant spirits; after the operation he recommended that a sesame poultice be applied to the wound- recommendations that may have foreshadowed the antiseptic theory of today”

Susrutha prescribed cardamom, ginger, black pepper, cumin and mustard as medicines to remove fat and to cure urinary complaints, pile and jaundice. A remedy for earache given by Susrutha and Charaka was application of oil boiled with ashes of black pepper.

Kanada, the exponent of the ancient atomic theory, classified tastes into six types: sweet, bitter, pungent, astringent, acid and saline and the examples provided included spices. Vatsyayana, the author of the art and science of lovemaking ‘Kamasutra’, also lived during the post-epic period. He advised the chewing of aromatic spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and clove to make the breath fragrant before lovemaking.

King Solomon and Hiram used to procure their supply of spices from Malabar Coast (West Coast of India between Goa and Kanyakumari was known as the Malabar Coast). Mostly Jews and Arabs controlled the trade, a fact mentioned in the Bible:

It is proved beyond doubt that the oriental merchandise of the days of King Hiram and King Solomon had its starting place in the sea ports of Dakhan: some of the most esteemed spices which were carried into Egypt by Midintish merchants and by the sons of patriarch Jacob had been cultivated in the spice gardens of Dakhan (Menon, 1995) (Here Dekhan stands for the entire South India).

This period (i.e post epic period) also witnessed Indian colonization in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and Far East islands of Java, Sumatra and eastern archipelago. The credit to this colonial expansion goes to Prince Vijaya who ruled the Gour country (the present Bengal and Bangladesh), the son of king Subahu of Sala (Magadha). Prince Vijaya reached Ceylon in around 700 BC and established his kingdom there. He also colonized Java, Sumatra and Eastern Archipelago. After this, Indian spices trade saw a boom because the rich cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg of Ceylon and Moluccas came under the sovereignty of Bengal kings. From India the spices were transported by land and sea to other countries.

The period of 600 BC to 500 AD was the golden millennium in the ancient Indian history. This period witnessed the lives of Gauthama the Buddha and Mahavira, and the rice and fall of two great empires, the Mourya’s and the Gupta’s. Kautilya’s ‘Arthasasthra’, Vaghabhatta’s Ashtangahridhayam; Nagarjuna’s editing of the work of Charaka and Sushrutha and publication of his Rasaratnakara, Thiruvalluvar’s Kural (regarded as the Tamil Veda), the classics of Varahamihira and Kalidasa etc. In Kautilya’s Arthasasthra there are many references on spices (Kautilya’s Arthasasthra, commentary by Ramasastry) such as the one given below.
“The function of a superintendent of stores was to collect taxes on the arrival of such notified commodities as acid - bearing fruits like pomegranate and tamarind and condiments like black pepper, long pepper, ginger, cumin seed, white mustard, coriander and Sigru (regarded as horseradish)”.
Another very interesting reference on spices found in Arthasasthra was when Kautilya specifies the duties of the superintendent of liquors and the quality of the six types of liquors (prasanna, medeka, asava, maireya, bijibandha, mahasura). All these liquors had spices as importanrt components; the spices mentioned were tejavati (Piper chaba), mango ginger (Curcuma amada), cinnamon bark, black pepper and long pepper. When the liquor was made for royal use large cardomom and dill were also added to make it more pleasant.

In the Buddist period also the use of spices like turmeric and saffron were common. Hastings (1955) records that the Swetamber Jains applies the auspicious saffron mark on their forehead and liquid saffron is applied at 14 different places of the main idol of their temples. In the Dharmasutras spices are mentioned profusely during marriage ceremonies. The marriage ceremony in those days consists of five parts. In the first part “Mandapam ceremony” the important ritual is ‘gatrahridra’, smearing the body with turmeric powder to generate sexual desires in the young couple.

During Ashoka’s period, he became the monarch of Kashmir as well. Kashmir was a meeting place of caravans from the plains of India and from the distant cities of central Asia, Tibet and China. Kashmir was also the place from where Indian spices reached the other Asian and west Asian countries by caravans. Vagabhatta, the author of Ashtangahridhayam, was presented with saffron bulbs by Nagi Takshaka, as reward for curing him of an eye disease. Vagabhatta planted the first saffron bulbs in the plateau of Pampur around 2nd century BC (Mahendru, 1982)

Ancient Kerala (the Malabar) was famous for her spices, and her name as the land of spices brought innumerable foreign traders from almost the 3rd or 2nd millennia BC. The Assyrians and Babylonians, whose civilization flourished in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC in the ancient Sumarian (Mesopotamia or the present day Iraq) carried on an extensive trade in cardamom and cinnamon that came from the Malabar coast. These spices reached Greece, Rome and Egypt and were used by them to make perfumed oils and holy oils for anointing the dead. The Arabs and the Phoenicians were the early pioneers of spice trade. Most probably, the first long voyage to the Malabar Coast and other regions of the East might have been undertaken by the Arabs of the Oman and Persian Gulf and the first cinnamon and cardamom from the Malabar Coast might have found its way to the Middle East through the Arabs (Menon, 1979, 1996). It is also believed that there were commercial contacts between South India and North India even as early as the Indus Valley Civilization (3rd millennium BC) and that several items found their way from the South to the Indus Valley. A Caravan route (spice route) is known to have existed, connecting North West India, and the Middle East. Then it may not be wrong in assuming that there was as overland route from the Malabar coast to the North India to the Middle East; and that spices from the Malabar coast might have gone out along this route as well.

The Phoenicians were noted for their skill in navigation, and they were also prominent in the spice trade. About 1000 BC, King Solomon of Israel equipped a fleet of ships manned by the Phoenicians, and their fleet sailed to the East and “come to Ophir and fetched from thence gold”. Some Scholars have identified Ophir as Beypore in Kozhikode. In the closing centuries of the era before Christ, Kerala’s trade in spices assumed great prominence. Cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric and pepper are the spices mentioned in the writings of Dioscorides (40-90 AD) in the Materia Medica, as possessing medicinal values. With Roman conquest of Egypt in the middle of the 1st Century BC, the Romans actively entered the filed of spice trade, and the Arab monopoly came to an end.

Antiochus IV (175 BC – 165 BC) is reported to have exhibited 800 tusks of Indian ivory and spices like cinnamon and nard on his triumph at Daphne in 166 BC. Indian spices were seen in the procession of Ptolemy Philladelphus (271 BC to 270 BC). The celebrated Materia Medica of Dioscorides (ca. 40 AD to 90 AD), a noted physician and military surgeon of Nero’s Roman army, mentions Greek equivalents of Indian spices as pippali- pepper, sringabera-ginger, kardama-cardamom, tila-sesamum etc. Diosorides in his ‘Herbal’ specifically mentions that kardamomum, Nardas (spikenard), melabathrum (cinnamon), Kastas (Calamus aromaticus, Acorus calamus) were imported from India for medicinal purpose. He also mentions other spices like aniseed, cumin, mustard, pepper, sesame and cinnamon. Hippocrates derives peperi (the Greek name for pepper) from the sanskrit ‘pippali’.

The discovery of the trade winds and monsoon by Hippalus in 45 AD helped Romans to reach the Malabar Coast of India and following this large-scale movement of spices took place. At the funeral of Sylla, 210 loads of spices were strewn upon the pyre. Nero (65AD) is reported to have burnt at the funeral of his most beloved wife, Poppaea, a full year supply of Indian cinnamon and cassia. Pliny laments on the drain of Roman gold into India in return for unproductive luxuries. He estimated that the Roman Empire paid out annually a hundred million sesterces (about £ 1087500) to India, China and Arabia for the purchase of luxuries, mainly spices (Menon, 1996). Pepper formed the bulk of the export from Kerala. The Romans valued it as highly as gold and silver, and hence the name ‘Yavana Priya’ was given to it.

The spice trade declined later during the period of Caracella (217 AD) as Roman prosperity was at a low ebb. However the trade picked up during the time of the Byzantine Empire and large quantities of spices, especially pepper, flowed into the warehouses of Byzantium. This continued till the fall of Byzantine Empire at the hands of the Alaric of Gothe (408 AD), and he took away as ransom 3000 pounds of Indian black pepper from the defeated Romans.

A geographer, Cosmos Indico Pleustes (535 AD) wrote the ‘Christian Topography’, in which he mentioned Mala (Malabar) as the chief seat of pepper trade and mentions the five pepper marts existed at Pandopatana, Nalopatana, Salopatana, Mangarath (probably Mangalore) and Parti, as well as more ports further north. Varahamihira made many references on spices, in his classic Brihadsamhita. For making an excellent toilet powder and a perfume for clothes; Varahamihira suggests taking cardomom, pounding into a fine powder and then mixing with equal quantities of musk and camphor. He indicates that one of the signs of a big (magnanimous) man is “his person smells like earth sprinkled with fresh rainwater or cassia or saffron or ichors of an elephant.” He even mentions spices in relation to astrological signs.

“If long pepper, black pepper, dried ginger, Cyprus grass, cumin seeds or dill seeds be seen or mentioned by a queriest, his thoughts will be about a woman’s fault, a man’s fault or loss of everything, or a son”. According to him nutmeg belong to the planet Venus. Nutmeg along with cardamom and pepper were indicated in the preparation of mothwash and perfumed tooth sticks. Innumerable such references are present in Varahamihira’s Samhita.
The Memoirs of Periplus is another notable publication, which dated back between BC 120 and AD 100 (Mukherjee, 1912). In this book Periplus describes the land of the origin of spices.
“To the south three great empires are mentioned: Tyndis, Muzris and Nelkynda, form where exported pepper, spices, pearls, ivory, fine silk and precious stones. Large Hindu ships were noticed off east Africa, Arabian and Persian ports, and Hindu settlements on the North coast of Secotra.”

It was during these times of free spice trade that Indian turmeric came into the hands of Greek and Roman women, who began anointing their fair figures with salves and pastes made out of turmeric and that it came to be valued as an agent of beauty care.

Jeanine Auboyar (undated) has written a classical book, “Daily life in India – from 2000 BC to 700 AD”. In this work Auboyar had made many references on the use of spices, including in veterinary medicines. He writes:

“The market in spices was equally lucrative. The most important of these were the various peppers (black pepper, long pepper, ball pepper) harvested for the most part along the cost of Malabar and exported chiefly to Alexandria for export to all the Mediterranean countries. The Arabs had long since secured for themselves a monopoly in the importation of India’s crop of ginger, which was transported in jars and served as a stomachachic and medicament. The same applied to cinnamon (camphor as well as cinnamon bark), whose resale was also in the hands of the Arabs. Cinnamon was considered a luxurious commodity and was used for many purposes – prophylactic for the protection of clothing against moths, for perfumery (incense) and for medicine. It was exported raw, the cinnamon barks and leaves packed separately. Cinnamon oil was used to perfume wines and also formed an ingredient in the sauce accompanying oysters in Rome. Cardamom produced in south India was also highly priced and expensive. Besides these, cloves and sesame were also exported along with other condiments”.

Auboyar also mentions that in the port of Muziri (the present day Kodungallur which was once a flourishing port) spices were exchanged for gold. In fact, “Roman ideas and arts traveled with the stream of Roman gold which flowed into the treasure chests of the Rajas in payment for silks, gums and spices of the Orient” (Anon, 1903). Auboyar gives interesting and picturesque details of the spice trade in India during those days. He also mentions that Brahmacharis (celebate students) were forbidden the use of salt and spices during fasting. The general food consisted of cooked rice, served with curd and three spices – cinnamon, cardamom and mace – all carefully ground on a flat stone. Meat dishes were spiced with chilly, pepper, cardamom, clove and cumin. Garlic and onion were forbidden, and those who wished to eat these spices had to do so outside the town.