History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c26.s2.t1.7

v1.c26.s2.t1.7

*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).