India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c8.s6.t2.30

c8.s6.t2.30

The above varieties of sweetening ingredients (*madhura-varga*) mixed with the decoction of *meshaśṛiṅgī* and other specified herbs, must have produced a correspondingly superior or inferior quality of drink. Charaka tells us that *maireya* was primarily a *madhura* wine, a drink of sweet taste. The choice of an inferior condiment like *guḍa* and *phāṇita*, or of a superior one like refined sugar made all the difference in the quality, taste and price of the *maireya* drink. The aristocratic customer in the tavern would order a superior grade of wine, and in the case of *maireya* this emphasis would fall naturally on the first part of the compound, *i.e.* on the word denoting the sweetening ingredient which therefore got an acute accent on it.