India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s6.2

c8.s6.2

The *Ashṭādhyāyī* contains material for an important chapter on the history of food and drinks in ancient India. Food is called *anna*, and the eater of food *annāda* (III.2.68). The word *bhakta* which also occurs in the *Jātakas* (*yāgu-bhattādīni*, *Takkala Jāt.* IV.43) and the *Arthaśāstra* (Text II.24) primarily denoted *anna*, as in *sūtra* VI.2.71 (*Bhak-tākhyās-tad-artheshu*) where names of edible articles are implied. A servant or wage-earner whose daily remuneration was given to him in the form of food was called *bhākta* or *bhāktika*, a practice which seems to have been more true in the case of agricultural labour. The *Arthaśāstra* says that food and wages (*bhakta-vetana*) were paid to the artisans, but food only to agricultural labour (*Arth.* Text II.24). Patañjali is even more specific: 'The meaning of the root *kṛishi* is not restricted merely to the actual operation of ploughing, but it also implies all accessory efforts by way of providing food (to labour), seed and bullocks, etc. which together contribute to the complete fulfilment of the sense of the verb' (*Bhāshya*, II. 33, *Yadasau bhakta-bīja-balīvardaiḥ pratividhānaṁ karoti sa kṛishy-arthaḥ*). The other sense of *bhakta*, viz. boiled rice is seen in *sūtra* IV.4.100, which prescribes a suffix to denote a thing that is good for *bhakta* (*Bhaktāṇ-ṇaḥ*). *Kāśikā's* examples *bhāktaḥ śāliḥ* and *bhāktas-taṇḍulaḥ* show that *bhakta* here stands only for boiled rice, a meaning which it still retains in Hindi *bhāt*.