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CHAPTER IV
CONSUMPTION
Consumption of wealth means the use of wealth for the satisfaction of various wants and desires. Production is the means while consumption is the end of all economic activity. Consumption is determined by the standard of life fixed by a particular person or society for himself or itself. Articles of consumption may be divided into necessaries, comforts and luxuries.
FOOD
The primary wants of life are those of food, clothing and shelter. As the country was largely agricultural there was ample supply of food. Of course, the food that the average man could afford was not sufficiently rich. Four kinds of food are mentioned food (asana), drink (pana), eatable (khaima) and relishable (sama). The articles of food were milk, curds, butter, ghee, oil, honey, wine, molasses, meat, cooked or dressed food (oga umaga, com. pakvänna), sakkuli (luchis in Hindi), raw sugar (phaniya), a meal of parched wheat (puya) and a meal of curds and sugar with spices (stharini). The production of salt was very important. Several varieties of salt are mentioned, viz. sochal salt (sovaccala), rock salt (sindhava), ordinary salt (lona), mine salt (roma), sea salt (samudda), earth salt(pamsukhāra) and black salt (kālālona).*
Besides, odana (rice), kummasa (bean) and sattuga (fried barley) are mentioned. The following consisted of eighteen kinds of seasoned food (vyañiana) supa (soup), odana (rice), java (boiled barley), three kinds of meat, cow-milk, jusa (water of boiled pulse), bhakkha (khandakhadya or sweets in which candy was used in plenty, com.), gulalavanya (gol papaḍi in Gujerati), mulaphala (bread-fruit), hariyaga (cumin), saga (vegetable), frasalu (manjka, a royal preparation made of the mixture of two palas of ghee, one pala of honey, half an adhaka of curds, twenty pepper corns and ten palas of candied sugar, com.), pina (wine), paniya (water), panaga (a drink made of grapes) and saga (a preparation seasoned with buttermilk such as dahibada, etc., com.). These articles were picpared in a cooking pot (thalipagasuddha) and were offered to the parents, master and religious teacher"
Among other preparations mention is made of pejja (made of gruel or decoction of some kind of pulse or rice), ghayapunna (ghevara in Hindi), palangamahuraya (a sweet liquid preparation of the mango or lemon
1 Naya. 7, p. 84.
2 Ava, cu II, p 319.
3 Aca. II, 1.4 247; also Brh Bhd 2 3175ff, cf. Mahabha. VII 64, 7f.
4 Das. su 3 8, also see Caraka, ch 27, p 815 ff.
Ava, cd. II., p 317.
8 Tha. 3.135, also see Caraka, krtannavarga, ch. 27, p. 800 ff.
