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History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c26.s1: Post-Harvest Operations

History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c26.s1

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English

Contents

Post-Harvest Operations

Grinding and pounding

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Saddle querns for grinding grain or spices go back, all over the country, to neolithic and even mesolithic times, growing larger and more sophisticated with time (Sankalia 1977a, p.254). The upper stone, from being just a simple flat or round pebble, was dressed to become a muller, which could be plano-convex or biconvex for use with a flat stones, or biconcave when paired with querns curving inwards or outwards (Sankalia, 1964). The Indus Valley settlements revealed two types of querns. One was more or less flat, with a cylindrical muller that could be rolled over it with both hands, as is done today for grinding chutnies. The other had a small depression, a round grinder, and a mainly crushing action, so that grains had probably to be soaked overnight before they could be ground in these querns (Sankalia 1977a, p.254). The action is shown in the well-known clay figure from Harappa, and much later is depicted in sculpture on an eastern gateway panel in Sanchi. The latter is a 4-legged flat quern, which was first found at Harappa, but occurs more commonly in early historical and subsequent periods, like the Maurya-Gupta, all over north India and the Western Deccan (Ray, 1986, p.137).

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In these sites also occurred a heavy rotary quern in two parts, the upper portion of which had two circular holes opposite each other through which a wooden pole could be introduced; two persons sitting opposite each other could then work this portion against the flat lower cylindrical base stone. Later, on the rim of the upper stone was provided a single socket in which a stout upright wooden peg could be affixed for circular movement by a single person. It has been argued that the earlier type is indigenous (Sankalia, 1987, pp.39-54) while the latter with a single peg was introduced during Roman contacts in the early Christian era (Dikshit, 1939). A very large heavy circular stone with a central hole has been found at Lothal (Dikshit, 1939) and Mohenjodaro (Mackay, 1938, Pl. 54, Item 20). One view is that this object represents a stratigraphical displacement (Dikshit, 1939); another is that the stone could be a large pulley for drawing water from wells (Bag, 1985, p.43) and not the upper half of a cākki.

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For dehusking grain a pounding and shearing action is needed. A mortar firmly fixed in a large hole built into the brick floor was unearthed at Harappa (Sankalia, 1977, p. 254), and a row of brick-lined pounding platforms with a central hole at Mohenjodaro (Sankalia, 1987, pp. 39-54). Stone mortars have been found at chalcolithic sites and at Mohenjodaro (Sankalia, 1977, p.254). A panel at Sanchi showing village activity depicts a woman, using a long (probably wooden) pole, pounding something in an hourglass- shaped mortar almost certainly made of stone (Dhavalikar, 1965). The Lakṣmaṇa temple at Khajuraho, of the 10th century A.D. shows what appears to be a wooden mortar and pestle (Prakash, Vidya, 1967, p.127). In the Daśakumāracarita of the 6th or 7th century A.D., a detailed description occurs of a cooking episode (Kale, 1925, pp.111-115), in which a girl polishes dehusked rice by gentle pounding in "a mortar of arjuna wood having an upright pole, not very deep or spacious, stirring it up again and again with her fingers, and striking it with the heavy pestle of khadira, with its end covered with iron plate and even-shaped, and with the slenderness of its middle part noticeable, her arms fatigued with the up and down motions". The southern origin of the author Bāṇa is inferred from the characteristic iron-covered tip of the pestle; this also finds mention (Rasanayagam, 1926, pp.130-160) in one of the songs of the Tamil anthology, Paṭṭupāṭṭu, placed about the 3rd century A.D., which describes "white rice well cleaned in pounders set in iron rings"

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Vedic Sanskrit has the word dṛṣad for a grinding quern probably of the flat stone type. The words for a mortar and pestle ulūkhala and musala, are believed to have been borrowed from even older usage (Shendge, 1977, p.241).

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In south India, grain crushers, mealing stones, and mortars and pestles have all been found in neolithic sites (2nd millenium B.C.) like Brahmagiri, Tekkalakotta and Jorwe (Dhavalikar, 1970, p. 32).

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The dhenki or foot-pounder is popular for dehusking paddy to yield brown rice, especially in eastern India and along the Indo- Gangetic plain. Being made of wood, old specimens cannot be expected to survive, but surprisingly it does not appear to be depicted even in sculpture anywhere. The device must be of atleast some antiquity, since it is the vehicle of Nārada (Wilkins, 1890, p. 479), who is himself one of seven great *rsis* of the *Rgveda* (Dowson, 1928, p.218), and is worshipped at domestic ceremonies like marriage, *upanayanam* and *annaprasanam* (Wilkins, 1890, p. 478).

Winnowing

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The Sanskrit *surpa* or winnowing tray to remove chaff, for example after rice pounding, is also believed to be a borrowed wood (Shendge, 1977, p, 241), indicating even prior usage of this device. For winnowing large amounts, pouring the material from a height in the open in a natural mild breeze is commonly employed.

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There is an interesting indoor variation in use to create a draft, whose antiquity is not known. This employs a large sheet of cloth, two adjacent corners of which are loosely pegged to the ground. The other end is flapped up and down by a standing woman, and seeds to be cleaned are slowly dropped, from above the pegged ends of the cloth, into the air currents so created.

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