OLDEST KNOWN SPECIMENS 



however, restrict itn wild ii.il.it. it t<> i hum, but vi \*>*>n found I. 



India and Australia uii.l.-r Midi <-,,nditiom tut to ul\<>:\ 



native to these countries aa well. De Candolle simply affirm 



in India, though subsequent to that of China, has been a value* i o the 



flastfu- |>>riiiii. It in |.(. int.nl out ill thn l> t i't,mtr<i that m ipitfl ..i t h,. t.-n.j.t.i- 



tion to derive the Aral ., uruzz, uruzz, vrix, etc.), Greek (V'i 



< an names (rice, rito, ru, etc.) fn.ni t ho Tamil arisi, modern philologist* aro 

 agreed that they cannot be so derived, but come from the old Permian 

 virinzi or virinza, the modern equivalent of which is birinj. Lyall 



states (I J.I:'. I'., I.e. 618) that virinzi it exactly the equivalent we should expect 

 of the Sanskrit word for rice, vrihi, and the names point to thu time when the two 

 lies of the Aryan race dwelt together and developed the respective peculi- 

 arities of their languages from a common or original tongue. The Persians did 

 not borrow the cultivation of rice from the Indians; the plant existed in th.- 

 i \\ hfre the two races dwelt together before their respective migrations, lit 

 other u .rds, there is no evidence to show that its cultivation in Southern Asia 

 was not so ancient as to havo allowed of its diffusion into th- . \ryun homo at a 

 period prior to the division of that branch of the human family. The chief ob- 

 jection to this hypothesis, viz. the absence of any pointed allusion to so valuable 

 a plant in the earliest Vedas, is not serious, since a pastoral people, like the early 

 Aryan invaders, may not have appreciated its importance till they settled down 

 and took to agricultural pursuits. Perhaps the oldest actual samples of rice are 

 those collected by Stein at Kara-dong (Ancient Khotan, 1007, 448). These would 

 appear to have been engulfed by sand about the close of the 8th century. Then, 

 approximately in the same part of Eastern Turkestan, was found The Bower 

 Manuscript (Hoernle, trans)., 123-4), believed to date from about the 5th 

 century. In that work frequent mention is made of " fried paddy" in the pro- 

 duction of a drug used in the cure of coughs. 



It may be repeated, however, that the chief wild habitat of the plant 

 to-day is roughly from Southern India to Cochin-China we have no record 

 of its existence as a wild plant in Turkestan or anywhere in Central Asia. 

 But in passing, it may be added that the habitat of the wild plant in India 

 coincides with the region through which the Dravidian invaders passed till they 

 culminated in the Tamil civilisation. Cultivation appears, in fact, to have 

 spread eastwards to China perhaps three thousand years before the Christian era, 

 and, at perhaps a slightly more recent date, westwards and northwards through- 

 out India to Persia, Central Asia, Arabia, and ultimately to Egypt and Europe. 

 An early record of the exports of rice from India is the passage in the Erythraean 

 Sea (ed. McCrindle, 1 13). This may be put at 60 A.D., and refers to Gujarat. [Cf. 

 Ace. Ind. and China by Moh. Trav. in 9th Cent. (Renaudot, transl.), 1733, 13 ; 

 Vertomannus, Travels, 1503, in Hakl. Voy., iv., 1811, 577; Ain-i-Alcbari, 1590, 

 (Jorrett, transl.), ii. f 121, 350; Pyrard, Voy. E. Ind., 1601 (ed. Hakl. Soc.), i., 

 326-7, etc. ; Jahangir, Memoirs (Price, transl.), 1829, 98 ; Mandelslo, Voy. E. Ind., 

 in Olearius, Hist. Muscovy, etc., 1662, 62, 86 ; Fryer, New Ace. E. Ind. and Pers., 

 1675, 119; Tavernier, Travels (ed. Ball), 1676, i., 282, 391, etc.; Herbert, 

 Travels, 1677, 310 and t. ; Alexander Hamilton, New Ace. E. Ind., 1688-1723, 

 i., 161 ; Ovington, Voy. to Suratt, 1689, 397 ; Symes, Smb. to Ava, 1800, ii., 307 ; 

 Turner, Emb. to Thibet, 1800, 24-6 ; Joret, Les PI. dans L'Anfiq., etc., 1904, ii., 

 242-314.] 



PROPERTIES AND USES. The grain of rice is one of the chief articles of 

 human food throughout India, while in many parts (e.g. Manipur) it was in 1882 

 one of the chief foods given to horses and even to cattle, and throughout India the 

 straw of the better qualities is invariably collected, cut into small pieces and 

 given to cattle, along with several flavouring liquid preparations, oil-cake or 

 grain, designated the currie stuffs. The chaff and waste obtained in winnowing 

 and husking also constitute important articles of human and cattle FOOD. But 

 husking is a troublesome process. In India a large part of the rice sold in shops 

 and exported to Europe as an article of human food has been prepared by being 

 first half boiled, then dried in the sun, and finally husked by the ordinary pestle 

 and mortar. Such rice is, in trade, termed " par- boiled." Husking without 

 boiling is a tedious process when done by hand. In Yarkand there is a mechani- 

 cal contrivance for husking rice in which water is the motive power. In the 

 plains of India, rice is frequently husked by the same appliance as is used in 

 pounding bricks. A pestle suspended from the end of a beam, worked by the 

 foot, is made to fall with considerable force on the grain. A woman, standing at 



825 



ORYZA 

 SATIVA 



History 



PnU. 



WfldEsMtafcj 



IndU. 



Food and 



1VU-.T. 



