The Materia Medica of the Hindus, compiled from Sanskrit Medical Works c5.s29.t2.6

Language: English

c5.s29.t2.6

ORYZA SATIVA. Rice is the principal and often the only food of the great mass of the Indian population. *Dháyna* the Sanskrit name of paddy, means the supporter or nourisher of mankind. It is regarded as the emblem of wealth or fortune. On a thursday in the month of Pausha (December, January) after the new paddy has been reaped, a rattan-made grain measure called *rek* in Bengali, is filled with new paddy, pieces of gold, silver and copper coins, and some shells called cauries, and worshipped as the representative of the goddess of fortune. This apparatus is preserved in a clean earthen pot and brought out for worship on one thursday in each of the following Hindu months, namely, Chaitra, Srávana, and Kártika. Such is the form of the domestic goddess of wealth of an agricultural people living chiefly on rice.¹