CHAPTER IV
FOOD AND ART IN THE VEDIC AGE
BARLEY and wheat seem to have been the chief produce of the field, and the principal articles of food. The names of grain found in the Rig-Veda are somewhat misleading, as they have come to bear a different signification in modern days from what they had in the ancient times. Thus the word yava, which in modern Sanskrit implies barley only, was used in the Veda to imply food-grains generally, including wheat and barley. And the word dhāna, which, in Bengal at least, now means paddy or rice, implies in the Rig-Veda fried barley, which was used as food and offered to the gods. There is no allusion to rice (vrīhi) in the Rig-Veda.
We also find mention of various kinds of cakes prepared from these grains and used as food and offered to the gods. The term pakti (from pach, to cook, or to prepare) means prepared cakes, and various other terms, such as purodāsa (sacrificial cake), apūpa (cake), and karambha (barley groats), are also used.
It may easily be imagined that animal food was largely used by the early Hindus of the Panjab, and
