Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/643

 A ;BIO UL TUBAL OB;ANISATION grain, after it was cut, was put into bundles and the sheaves were thrown on the threshing floor. The pasha on the khal is alluded to in a hymn to Indra Vaikuntha (x, 48, ?). Thus separated from the chaff., it was still coarse grain and unfit for human consumption. At this stage it had an entirely separate name, saktu (x, 71, 2). The nxt process was to winnow it, separa- ting the chaff from the grain. Titau in the Rig Veda stands for the sieve or the .winnowlug fan. Thus: "The wise create speech through wisdom winnowlug it.as men winnow yava with a sieve" (x, 71, ). The wmnower was called dhanyakrit (x, 94, 18). After the grain had been thus separated, it was stored up. In this connection the word urdara is differently inter- preted (ii, 14, 11); Sayana renders it into granary, whereas others say that it indicates some measure for grain. For the same idea sthivi is also used in the plural (x, 68.,8). In view of the conflict of opinions, it would not be safe for us to accept it definitely either as a granary or as a measure, although it must mean either the one or the other of these two. Agricultural Products It remains for us products of the time. now to study he agricultural In this connection it is most unfortunate that from the available materials in the Rig Veda i is extremely difiieul o ascertain exactly the grains that were produced by agriculture. All the words used for grain have had some special meaning in the later Samhitas which was not the meaning in the Rig Vedic age. But one fact stands out as certain, that is, that the people of the time produced more than one kind of grain. This is proved by the various words bably learnt the cultivation or use of used to denote products of agriculture. Pro- it was an age during which they had just some new products,