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A CULTURAL STUDY OF THE NISITHA CURNI
sub-varieties of sali rice,1 the kalama variety has been frequently mentioned; it was highly relished and the monks accustomed to delicacies sometimes aspired to eat the boiled kalama śāli rice. Vihi rice was also widely used and layataraṇa is explained as a kind of gruel (peya) prepared from the parched vrihi rice (lāyā). It was usually taken by the monks at the end of a long fasting."
Barley (java) was another important food-grain. Various preparations of barley such as apupas were common. People often took with them the parched barley-meal (saktu) while proceeding on a journey. It was usually mixed with sugar and clarified butter. Wheat (gohuma) was also common, and we find the traders going out for trade with carts loaded with wheat. Various types of cakes (khajjagas) 10 were prepared from the wheat-flour. Mandagal was a type of wheat cake stuffed with molasses and ghee. On certain occasion people in south India used to make a large cake (maṇḍaga) containing a kuḍava of wheat flour; it was stuffed with molasses and ghee and was given to a Brahmana in the early morning.'"
Besides rice, barley and wheat, certain inferior varieties of grains were also used. While the rich people were fond of taking sali-kura (boiled sali rice), the poor people ate koddavakūra (paspalum scorbiculatum, Hindi-kodom), an inferior variety of rice. We find a poor lady exchanging koddava-kura with the
1. Caraka mentions fifteen good and five inferior varieties of sali riceCarakasamhita, 27. 7-8, 11.
2. NC. 2, p. 233; NC. 3, p. 295.
3. अज्जो ! आह में कलमसालीकूर - NC. 3, p. 295.
4. NC. 1, p. 162.
5. कते वा विकितवे पारणए लायतरणादी पिएज्ज-- Ibid.
6. NC. 2, p. 117; NC. 4, p. 130..
7. NC. 3, pp. 117, 295, 436; NC. 4, p. 115.
8. सत्तुआ घयगुलमिस्सा घेप्पंति - NC 4, p. 115. 9. NC. 4, p. 111.
10. NC. 3, p. 295; NC. 4, p. 115.
11. NC. 2, p. 282; NC. 4, p. 115.
12. NC. 3, p. 207; Brh. Vr. 3, p. 808.
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