452 Sino-Iranica 



tinued to cultivate it in England. 1 Moreover, the carrot grows wild in 

 Britain and generally in the north temperate zone of Europe and Asia, 

 and no doubt represents the stock of the cultivated carrot, which can 

 be developed from it in a few generations. 2 It is impossible to connect 

 Anglo-Saxon moru (not mora, as in Watt) with Sanskrit mula or mulaka. 

 No evidence is given for the bold assertion that "the carrot appears to 

 have been regularly used in India from fairly ancient times." The only 

 sources quoted are Baber's Memoirs 3 and the Ain-i Akbari, both works 

 of the sixteenth century. I fail to see any proof for the alleged antiquity 

 of carrot cultivation in India. There is no genuine Sanskrit word for 

 this vegetable. It is incorrect that "the Sanskrit gar jam originated 

 the Persian zardak and the Arabic jegar" (sic, for jezer). Boehtlingk 

 gives for garjara only the meaning "kind of grass." As indicated below, 

 it was the Arabs who carried the carrot to Persia in the tenth century, 

 and I do not believe that it was known in India prior to that time. 

 According to Watt, Daucus carota is a native of Kashmir and the western 

 Himalaya at altitudes of from 5000 to 9000 feet; and throughout 

 India it is cultivated by Europeans, mostly from annually imported 

 seed, and by the natives from an acclimatised if not indigenous stock. 

 Also N. G. Mukerji 4 observes, "The English root-crop which has a 

 special value as a nourishing famine-food and fodder is the carrot. Up- 

 country carrot or gajra is not such a nourishing and palatable food as 

 European carrot, and of all the carrots experimented with in this 

 country, the red Mediterranean variety grown at the Cawnpore Experi- 

 mental Farm seems to be the best." 



W. Roxburgh 5 states that Daucus carota "is said to be a native 

 of Persia; in India it is only found in a cultivated state." He gives 

 two Sanskrit names, — grinjana and gargara, but his editor remarks 

 that he finds no authority for these. In fact, these and Watt's alleged 

 Sanskrit names are not at all Sanskrit, but merely Hindi (Hindi 

 gajara) ; and this word is derived from Persian (not the Persian derived 

 from Sanskrit, as alleged by Watt). The only Sanskrit terms for 

 the carrot known to me are yavana ("Greek or foreign vegetable") 

 and pitakanda (literally, "yellow root"), which appears only in the 

 Rajanighantu, a work from the beginning of the fifteenth century. This 



1 Hoops, op. cit., p. 600. 



2 A. de Candolle, Gebgraphie botanique, p. 827. 



3 Baber ate plenty of carrots on the night (December 21, 1526) when an attempt 

 was made to poison him. Cf . H. Beveridge, The Attempt to Poison Babur Padshah 

 {Asiatic Review, Vol. XII, 1917, pp. 301-304). 



4 Handbook of Indian Agriculture, 2d ed., p. 304. 

 6 Flora Indica, p. 270. 



