INTItnhl < TION INTO INDIA 



ZEA MAYS 



History 



.. 



not maize that Arabic name being now applied to both grains. Bebw (Jkfs- Mot 

 moire (portion written i...'o . i,.,,.. , . iving asm mairr im his 



.-u-rival in India, though he ,-, 

 him. Moreover, the early Kurope . 



Rheedeand Ruraphius, areailei ng this oereal. ' i-Akbarl 



the A'lmiiiMtr. A'./,.' ot the Km|*Tor . \kb,,r for l.V.i" 



and pulses grown in India dn , does not mHwlr HMJ1S. but 



h<- i-.-inarks under ki'tini (P&nd&nui. * p 777) that it* leaves are like those of 

 m.ii/e (Hlochmann, transl., 83). The word "maize" m nf course furnished by the 



.tor. and must IM- an rendering. 1 1 is interesting to note, howl 



that M.-nd../.. H i m among* 



"the plant called mai/.e. wln.-h . ..nt it ute-. p 



r.retsclmeuler. H'-' Hump. Bot. LH*C. IH ' III the 1 Hill 



ry Kurmann pul>lishe<l hi* Thftaurim Zrylaniru* and hi flora Indica, but 

 m ni-it h.-r does he allude to z+m. Hove, who at the close of the 18th century 

 < I 7-^7) \ isited Bombay in order to study ite cotton, wrote a report full of infor- 

 mation on all the > Tops seen by him. lr .ii-corn. ! 



would perhaps be unsafe to assume that, although the pine-apple was fully known 

 in the hit h r.-nt urv . - extn-mely \ aluaMc a plant as the maize had not reached 

 India until after the date when Rumphius wrote his great work (Herb. Amb., 

 1750). which to some extent figures and describe* the plant* If we can 



accept the passage above indicated from Foster a* satisfactorily establishing the 

 existence of the grain in India, it must have been an article of commerce nearly a 

 century previous to the date at which Kumphius wrote. 



The most general vernacular name in India for this corn is mnkk* 

 corn), which may be regarded as manifesting the association of the grain with tl..- 

 Muhammadan rulers of India and at the same time accepted as strongly sug- 

 gestive of the Portuguese influence at the court of the Mughal. The displacement 

 in i omplished by the new cereal, or rather its appropriation of names formerly 

 given to certain forms of M*f *MIM, may b viewed as denoting the innate pro- 

 pensity of Asiatics to contrast all new ideas with previous conceptions. The 

 origin of its other most general name, bhuta, is more obscure, but is probably 

 derived from bhukta or bhutta to eat. Both names are clearly modern, however, 

 and do not occur in any classic works of even the most recent date. 80 very 

 little progress had, however, been made with maize cultivation that Roxburgh 

 wrote, about the beginning of the 19th century, that Indian-corn was " cultivated 

 in various parts of India in gardens, and only as a delicacy ; but not any- 

 \\here on the continent of India, so far as I can learn, as an extensive crop." 

 Buchanan-Hamilton (Kingdom of Nepal, 1819. 284, 312), while dealing with 

 the ancient State of Yumila (ite capital Chhina-chin) says that they had 

 maize. In a further page, he remarks of Kangra " The poor live much on 

 maize." Very shortly after the appearance of Roxburgh's Flora Indica, how- 

 ever, Graham (Cat. PI. Bombay, 1839, 240) wrote of Western India that maixe 

 was "commonly cultivated." Dalzell and Gibson (Ft. Bomb., 1861 (suppl.), Orown, 

 100), some thirty years later (1861), said that it was "extensively grown in 

 the early part of the rains, especially near large towns." These authors also 

 add" The grain is seldom used in India as a flour. But an illustrative of the 

 extremely local character of the information ofu-ii furnished by Indian writers, 

 it may be added that Stewart (in 1862) wrote of Bijnour that " much of the maize 

 was ground into flour and made into bread, although very much leas is here used 

 in this way than in the Panjab." It is thus very probable that in I'pper India 

 (a region, comparatively speaking, unknown to Roxburgh) maize was much more 

 extensively grown at the beginning of the century than miht IHJ inferred from 

 Roxburgh's words. At the present day it would be more nearly correct, at any \n Important 

 rate, to speak of maize as of equal value to the people of India .11. 

 wheat, instead of ite being grown purely as a garden 



crop upon which at least the bulk of the aboriginal tribes of the hilly tracte of 

 India are very largely dependent for subsistence. Thus ite diffusion over L 

 during the present century, might almost be said to be on. *t powerf 



arguments against the statement often made that the Native, nf 1 

 conservative that they can scarcely be induced to change their time-honoured 

 customs, even when these can bo shown to be Inimical to their best interest*, 

 completely lias India now appropriated the makkat that village lath 



would be found willing to admit that it had not always been with them, as it w 

 now, a staple article of diet. 



1133 



Grown M 

 Luxury. 



