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History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c26.s2.t1: Devices and methods

History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c26.s2.t1

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English

Devices and methods

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*Cūlās* : Several houses in the Indus Valley settlement of Kalibangan had both underground and above-ground mud hearths, the latter with a comfortable bridged side-opening for feeding fuel (Ghurye, 1979, pp. 372-380). *Cūlās* with knobs, both of round and square shapes, and with one to three mouths, have been unearthed in sites at Ahar, Navdatoli and Jorwe dated 1500-1000 BC (Sankalia, 1977, pp. 100-124) and in Atranjikhera dated 600 BC (Ghurye, 1979, p.400). One of the Ajanta frescoes depicts a kitchen with knobbed *cūlās* (Yazdani 1952, pp, 58, 104), and they persist in India to this day.

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*Ovens* : Baking ovens of various sizes have been excavated in Mohenjodaro, but some at least are really very large kilns for firing pottery objects of large size (Sankalia, 1970, p.13). Baking (*puṭapāka*), though known, is not a common style of Indian cooking.

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*Spits* : The Vedic sacrifices (as we shall see ) involve roasting a whole animal, or pieces of meat, on skewers or spits. In cooking language, *tanduram* means grilling and *bharjanam* dry roasting (Krishnamurthy, 1984, p. 227). At a picnic described in the *Mahābhārata* (Sengupta, P. 1950, p. 547), “cleanly cooks under the supervision of diligent stewards, served large pieces of meat roasted on spits...... young buffalo calves (were) roasted (whole?) on spits with ghee dropping on them”. A *Paṭṭupāṭṭu* poet (*Rasanayagam*, 1926, pp. 130-160) of the third Tamil Sangam period (about the 3rd century AD) describes “fine large pieces of fat meat roasted on iron spikes” and elsewhere roasted pork is noted with relish (Nilakantha Sastri 1958, p.130). The modern *kābab* has an old history.

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*Grilling* : Though a *tāva* for grilling does not seem to have been specifically identified in the Indus Valley, a typical dough-kneading plate with sides sloping outwards was recovered at Mohenjodaro (Mackay, 1938, Pl. 64, Item 13). The *Sūtra* literature rocords the baking of flat cakes on a broken earthen jar (*kapāla*), and a grilling vessel (*vapāsrapaṇi*) (Prakash, Om, 1961, pp. 34-57). Among the items of the sacrificial *puroḍuśa* offering described in the Gṛhya sūtras is the *apupa*; this "implies a great advance in the art of baking," in that it is a cake baked on a flat vessel and a pan with a varying number of hollows resembling dishes, yielding a variety of shapes to the cake itself (Apte, 1939, pp.95-102). A stone with depressions is still in use in parts of south India to bake a type of rice *appam* called *kuzhi*. Several baking techniques recorded in the 17th century AD in Karnataka (*Sūpa Śāstra*, (a), p.268), but probably in traditional use much earlier, were: baking on a hot flat or concave griddle (*battala*); on a hot tile (*kencu*): between two plates with live coals placed both above and below; and directly on coals, after which the outer charred crust was discarded before consuming the cooked core.

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Steaming : The Chinese pilgrim Xuan Zang in the 7th century AD stated that "India does not know the use of the steamer". While specific devices may not have been in widespread use, steaming as a way of cooking was known. The *Bṛhatsaṃhitā* of Varāhamihira, dated about 505 AD, describes a barley dish, *yavaka*, as *svinnabhaksya* or a steamed food (Shastri, 1969, pp.209- 216). Among traditional cooking operations were *svedanam* or steaming, the others being *bharjanam* (dry roasting), *talanam* (drying), *apakva* (frying), *pacanam* (cooking in water ), *kvatanam* (parboiling), *tanduram* (grilling), *puṭapāka* (baking), and *bhāvita* (seasoning). A Kannada work written in 920 AD mentions the *idalige* (idli) (*Sūpa Śāstra*, (b), p.255), and steaming was probably achieved, as it was slightly later, by the simple expedient of tying a cloth (on which the material was placed in lumps or small wicker baskets) over the wide mouth of a vessel in which water was boiled. A related product, the *kaḍubu*, was not through-steamed like the porous *idli*, but spread out on leaves or trays and surface-steamed to a denser product. In making the *puṭṭu* of Kerala, alternate layers of broken rice and coconut are introduced into a wide bamboo tube in which a pierced metal disc is placed on the lower node. A funnel is loosely inserted on top for steam to escape, and the tube is then tightly fixed on the spout of a vessel in which water is boiled to effect steaming. The antiquity of this simple domestic technology remains to be established. A vessel that occurs commonly even in many neolithic sites, and later in the Indus Valley, is a tall earthen cylinder with perforations all over it (Wheeler, 1959, p.103); one use suggested for this, among many others, is that it is a vessel for steam cooking (Ghurye, 1979, p. 383).

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Cooking under pressure : The virtues of cooking over a slow fire is noted in the *Bhela Saṃhitā* (c. 150 AD) (Prakash Om, 1961, pp.87-101) and again a century later in the *Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa* (Prakash Om, 1961, pp.203-239). Now generally called *dumpukht* or simply dum cooking, this involves slow simmering of the materials in a vessel, on which a well-fitting lid is sealed all round using a thick dough of wheat. The practice is called *kaṇikā* in Kannada, and is mentioned in a work of 1606 AD (*Supa Śāstra*, (b), p. 255), but is probably older. It is in common use even today for making pullao all over the country, live coals being placed both below the vessel and on the lid for slow, gentle baking with aroma retention.

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*Founding and cleaning rice*: Rice pounders have already been described under post-harvest operations, and domestic devices were no different. In the charming cooking vignette which occurs in the *Daśakumāracarita* (6th-7th century AD (Kale, 1925, pp.111- 115),the maiden, after pounding the grain, dries the mass briefly in the sun, turns it over and over, and then separates the chaff without breaking the grains by striking them gently with the edge of a stalk. Use of the *surpa* or winnowing tray for removing extraneous matter like sticks and stones from grain at any stage must go back at least to its first mention in Vedic times. The *Amarakośa* (c.450 AD) lists two names for sieves, *cālāni* and *titau* (Deshmukh, 1981, pp.99-110).

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*Churning butter*: The Indus Valley seals depict bulls, among them those of the Kankrej breed (Randhawa, 1980, p.184, Fig.96), pointing to the distinct likelihood of dairy operations which could well have included the churning of soured milk into butter. The *Ṛgveda* has several references to the churning of curds with a corrugated stick, the mixture after the operation being termed *prasadiya* (Prakash, Om, 1961, pp. 34-57). Freshly-prepared butter later acquired the name *navanitha*, while butter prepared from fresh milk was variously termed *phanta* (Pāṇini),*kṣirotanavanitha* (Suśruta) and *payasarpis* (Varāhamihira) (Shastri, 1969, pp. 209- 216). The Lakṣmaṇa Temple (c. 925 AD) at Khajuraho shows in *Kṛṣṇa-Līlā* scenes a stick, standing in an earthen pot, which was churned with the help of a rope (Prakash Vidya, 1982, p, 127) exactly as is done at present. Another charming butter-making device of unknown antiquity common in parts of south India is a convex piece of coconut shell with three pierced holes, fixed on a long bamboo stem; this is worked up and down in a tall cylindrical bamboo or tinned copper vessel to achieve concussion and release of butter in the diluted curd that is being churned. A beautiful Tamil poem, *Perumpanūrrupadai* in the *Paṭṭupāṭṭu* anthology of about the 4th century AD (*Rasanayagam*, 1926, pp. 130-160; Srinivasa Iyengar, 1930, pp. 57-70) describes how the cowherdess sells buttermilk that has been made by “pulling the strings of the *mattu* (churning rod) which creates a sound resembling the growl of a tiger”. The curds themselves are noted as having earlier been seeded using a pat of the previous day’s curd which looked like a “white mushroom”.

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She then sets off on her selling errand “placing the pot, with its speckled mouth, on her head supported by a circlet of flowers”. The Sangam literature of the period is replete with references to cream (*eḍu* or *perugu*), curds, buttermilk, butter and ghee (Srinivasa Iyengar, 1930, pp. 57-70). The finding of vast mounds of ash burnt from cattle dung, dated around 2200 BC, in many sites along the valley of the River Krishna in south India (Allchin, 1963) would argue for the existence of cattle keeping and dairy products from times long before the Aryan advent.

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