ABSTRACT
BARLEY and wheat seem to have been the p-incipal produce of the field, and the principal articles of food. The names of grain found in the Rig Veda are somewhat misleading, as they have come to bear a different signification in modern days from what they had in the ancient times. Thus the word ]/fl';Jtl, which in modern Sanscrit implies barley only, was used in the Veda to imply food-grains generally, including wheat and barley. And the word Dluiua, which, in Bengal at least, means paddy or rice, ir..plies in the Rig Veda fried barley, which was used as food and offered to the gods. There is no allusion to vrthi (rice) in the Rig Veda.
