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quantities of sugarcane were needed to produce these sweet
ingredients, and so there were huge sugarcane groves
(Iksuvanas) (Agrawala 1963 : 111). Thus, though the Aryans
became acquinted with the sugarcane plant at a very early
date, the art of turning its juice into molasses, jaggery
and sugar was a late acquisition.
The Mbh, as noted earlier, refers to all three,
sugarcane, molasses and jaggery, but none are very
conspicuous.
Honey was the only true sweetening element
in the diet. This predominant position of honey dates back
to Rgvedic days. It was, in fact, the earliest sweet known
to the Indians and for a long time remained so.
Slowly sugarcane juice and its products like
jaggery and sugar began to assume importance, first in
Panini and then in the Buddhist cononical works, which
reveal, that by their time, sugarcane was the most important
source of sweet ingredients. It was a common crop met with
everywhere (L. Gopal 1964: 58). Its juice was squeezed
by machines and was available in plenty, while its products
were manifold, like guda, phanita, sarkara and matsyandika
(sugar candy) (Om Prakash 1961 : 68).
Thus, on the basis of this cumulative evidence,
the beginnings of sugar-making in India can be assigned to
about 500 B.C. Against this background the absence of
sugar in the Mbh is very significant. It places the Epic
on par with the later Samhitas and Brahmanas, where the