Pliny goes on to complain about pepper.
"It is quite surprising that the use of pepper has come so much into fashion... pepper has nothing in it that can plead as a recommendation to either fruit or berry, its only desirable quality being a certain pungency"
He continues, "and yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who was the first to make trial of it as an article of food? and who, I wonder, was the man that was not content to prepare himself by hunger only for the satisfying of a greedy appetite?"
So, we can concur that pepper from India (both long and black pepper) was sufficiently spicy to cause significant heartburn to Pliny.
In fact, the word "pepper" itself comes from the Sanskrit "pippali".
Most of this pepper came from Kerala and was traded through the glorious port of Muziris on Malabar coast.
Muziris finds mention in the Periplus (a travelogue of ports) of the Erythrean Sea (Red Sea).
This black fruit (botanically, pepper is a fruit) caused so much irritation to Pliny the Elder.
It also formed the core of the Maritime Spice Route from Asia to Europe.
Pepper was so valuable to Rome and Europe that it was used as ransom!
In order to lift the siege on Rome, the Visigoths headed by Alaric I demanded 5000lbs of gold, and 3000 lbs of Pepper (among other assorted things)
Even a millennium after Alaric, pepper was still in demand in Europe.
One could argue that the foundations of Venice, Genoa and several maritime republics stand on the strength of this dried black spice!
That famous sea voyage of Vasco da Gama was an attempt to discover an alternate sea route to the source of... you guessed it.
It was to get to the source of pepper and other assorted spices.
That of course, led to the Age of Colonialism and everything that followed.
But I'll stop here.
May our meals and lives be spiced up by this magical black seed, now and forever!
Thank you for reading!
Correction: Pliny did not say pepper was draining Rome by 50 million sesterces a year.
Muthuswami Dikshitar of the Carnatic Trinity, in his composition, Kalavati Kamalasana Yuvati, refers to Sarada Devi as
"Kasmira Vihara, Vara Sarada", once again establishing Sarada Devi worship in Kashmir.
Kalhana in his famous Rajatarangini, venerates the presence of Sarada Devi in Kashmir, as a Hamsa (Swan), in the lake on top of the Bheda hill.
Muthuswami Dikshitar, one of the Carnatic Trinity, and a Devi Upasaka composed hundreds of songs.
Pic: A stamp issued in honor of Dikshitar in 1976 on his 200th birth anniversary.
Well-versed in Sanskrit, Dikshitar composed groups of songs, with the first word beginning with noun declension in each of the 8 cases (vibhaktis) of Sanskrit.
Shall we begin with a thread on the Visvanathashtakam?
(I'm using the spelling I'm comfortable with. Please forgive the non-use of diacritics)
Visvanatha is the Lord of the Universe, the form of Siva in the town of Varanasi. #KashiVishwanathCorridor
Varanasi, a city that is "Older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together", according to Mark Twain.
A city that is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the planet.
A city that like several others in the world, gets its name from the rivers which cradled civilisation on their banks.
The old town of Varanasi lies on the banks of the Varuna and Assi rivers.
with a palpable thread of sorrow woven into the tapestry of happiness that the song otherwise is.
That famed மென்சோகம், perhaps foreshadowing a latent loss.
This song from Rani Samyukta
With a Sitar, Samyukta sings about her muse, her lover, Prithviraj, about how his memory will last as long as her heart beats.
She sings about her love for him, about his love for her.
But...
But, we know, we know that the future holds tragedy.
Prithviraj will win the first battle of Tarain and then lose the 2nd one.
Their life together forever will come to a premature end.