THE ORIGIN OF A NONAS. 205- 



Ifc was therefore the fanciful Hindu, very much like the Indian doctor of 

 J. C. Lisboa, who invented the two names, just like the Hindu poet (God knows 

 if the same) gave the name Sita-Keins, "Sita's Hairs" to the climbing plant 

 Ipomea quamoclit, Linnaeus (Indian forget-me-not, Bed Jasamine or china Creeper 

 in English) indigenous to Tropical America, and probably introduced in India 

 by the Portuguese. The natives in Guzarat do call Sitopodri (Anglo hid. Lie/. 

 by Whitworth) any missionary catholic or protestant in the belief that the 

 Virgin Mary, our Lady, is no more than their Sita. ? 



Ramaphal and Sitaphal are indisputably neotogisms like Sita-leins and 

 Sila-padri so much so that the Mahrati- English Diet, of Molesworth wbo 

 always indicates the Sanskrit origin of all Mahrati words derived from that 

 classical language, does not trace their derivations. It is true that in Sanskrit 

 and in Mahrati there is also to be found a name little used and known, for 

 instance the Dictionary of Talekar does not mention it. That name is Lavani, 

 meaning " a sort of custard-apple, " according to the Dictionary of Molesworih,. 

 wherein fae word is indicated with the mark S to signify that it is a Sanskrit 

 term, used in Mahrati only by men of letters. It is probably an inferior variety 

 of the 400 species of 140 genera of Anonacea? known in the New and Old 

 World. Really it cannot be believed that that the lavani (and not lavali as in 

 the Gloss, of G. King referred to by Yule and Burnell) is the delicious ata not 

 even the anona, and if Rama has eaten lavanis he could only have had it for his 

 light auxiliaries (the monkeys of Sugriva to invade Lanka) for the liberation of 

 Sita, ravished by Havana. 



It is really curious that in Mahrati the name Ravanaphal, " Havana's fruit"" 

 is given to a wild apple. Molesworth lexicon says : So named as hearing 

 ■particulars of contrast or comparison itith Ramaphal. 



This is very suggestive and conclusive. A jungle fruit is given ihe name cf 

 Havana on account of its similarity to the fruit of Rama. You see the inge- 

 nious process by which one anel the other names have been coined. They 

 have borrowed names from Mythology for the Ata and Anona, and it is clear 

 that people did not know they were found in India. 



At last the decisive argument, the argument of fact that altogether decides 

 the question, is that in the times of Garcia de Orta there were no atas and 

 anonas in India. Otherwise the author of Colloquios would not have omitted to 

 describe such a delicious fruit as the ata. Orta was not only at Goa and 

 Bombay, an " estate and island which the King our Lord has graciously granted 

 me on perpetual lease, " as be himself says in the Coll. XXII, about areca and 

 banana, but he was in various parts of India, even in the interior, and describes 

 plants which he could not see, but about which in his scientific curiosity he 

 collected information from the natives and from the Portuguese in India. 



Thence I affirm without fear of error that the ata and the anona have been 

 like the caju and so many other plants, useful and palatable, introduced in India 

 by our glorious ancestors after 1563, the year of publication at Goa. of the 

 book of Garcia de Orta, 



