616 GRAMINEjK 



that in Yedic times, tlie wife when three monthi? gone with 

 child fasted ; after her fast, her husband came to her with a 

 pot of sour milk into which he threw two beans and a grain 

 of barley, and whilst she was drinking it, he asked, " What 

 drinkest thou?" She, having drunk three times, replied, 

 •'I drink to the birth of a son." Narayana, in his Commentary 

 on Asvalavana, states that the two beans and the grain of 

 barley represent the organs of generation. {De Gubeniafis.) 



At the Yava-chaturthi, on the fourth day of the light half 

 of the month Talsakh, a sort of game is played in which 



L 



people throw barley-meal over eacli other. Yava-sura, an 

 intoxicating drink, is maclo from barley in Northern India. 

 According to Bretschneider, barley is included among the five 

 cereals, which^ it is related in Chinese history, were sowed by the 

 Emperor Sheti-nmig, who reigned about 2700 B.C. ; but it is 

 not one of the five sorts of grain which are used at the ceremony 

 of ploughing and sowing as now annually performed by the 

 emperors of China, 



Theophrastus was acquainted with several sorts of barley 

 (K/ji^T^)^ and, among them, with the six-roWed kind or hcxasti' 

 chon^ which is the species that is represented on the coins 

 struck at Metapontum in Ltlcania between the 6th and 2nd 

 centuries B.C. 



Barley is mentioned in the Bible as a plant of cultivation m 

 Egypt and Syria, and must have been, among the ancient 

 Hebrews, an important article of food, judging from the 

 quantity allowed by Solomon to the servant of Hiram, king of 

 Tyre (B.C. 1015). The tribute of barley paid to King Jotham 

 by the Ammonites (B.C. 741) is also exactly recorded. The 

 ancients were frequently in the practice of removing the hard 



integuments of barley by roasting it, and using the torrmea 

 grain as food. {Phanaacogrnphia.) 



The Hindus employ barley in the dietary of the sick. It i^ 

 chiefly used in the form of mliv or powder of the parche 

 grain. Gruel prepared from saldu is said to be easily digestec 

 and to be useful in painful dyspepsia. In Europe, for use m 



