588 GRAMINE^. 



'* bamboo sacrifice/' Subhra, and Sita ^^ wliite/' &c. It is 

 considered to be strengtbening, tonic, cold, and SAveet ; to 

 alleviate thirst, and to avert pbtbisis, fever, asthma, cough, 

 biliousness, skin diseases, and Vayu {morbid affections of the 

 windy humor). As an examj)le of the way in which it is 

 prescribed, the following formula for making the Sitopaladi" 

 cJmrna will be found in Sarangadhara : — Bamboo manna 8 parts, 

 long pepper 4, cardamoms 2, cinnamon 1, sugar 16. Powder 

 and mix. Dose about 60 grains, to be given with honey and 

 ghi in phthisis and cachexia. 



The belief in the strengthening properties of bamboo manna 

 appears to have originated among the aboriginal tribes of 

 India, as on the West Coast it is the first solid food which the 

 Thana Kolis give their children. The same belief seems to 

 have prevailed in Borneo, as Marco Polo relates that pieces of 

 this substance were let in under the skin by the natives to 

 make the body wound -proof. 



We hold with Salmasins that bamboo manna was the 

 substance known to the Greeks as o-aKxap aiKxapov^ and described 

 by them as a white, concreted or crystalline substance like 



there was no kind 



known 



in the time of Dioscorides. The name Sarkara, which signifies 

 '' grit, pebbles, sand/' was applied by Hindu writers at that 

 time to several substances, €iz., Guda or molasses in a dry 

 granular state, the only kind of cane-sugar then in use in 

 India ; YaTam-mrkara, the concrete manna of Alha^i ; and F^/z^^flf 

 mrlara, fhe concretion found in tlie bamboo. The Sanskrit 

 name Kbanda was also applied to Guda, which is the substance 

 inown in the vernaculars as Gdr or Gdl, and is still the kind 

 of sugar most used by the Hindus. Pale crystalKne sugar, the 

 Chini of the bazars, does not appear to have been known until 

 some 400 years after the date of Dioscorides, 



Under the name of Tab^shir, a corruption of the Sanskrit 

 Tvak-kshira, bamboo manna was known to the early Arab 

 travellers in the East ; the port of Thana. on the West Coast of 



