Foods in Ancient India

Today, Indian cooking offers a wide array of foods.  The incredible richness of the Indian foods is the result of thousands of years of cooking, and eating.

Foods of ancient India are as popular today but many of them as eaten today and widespread in modern Indian cooking were imported from Americas. Chili, or red pepper, so important part of South Indian cookery arrived in India only by the Portuguese from Americas after the latter’s discovery in the 15th century. Same is the case with the brinjal, potatoes, sweet corn or maize.

Fruits and sweetmeats of ancient India were similar to those of the present day but did not include some that have become widespread as Indian sweets such as the jalebi, which was imported by the Muslims. 

According to early fifth century Chinese traveler Fa-hsein, only people of low castes ate meat. This may not be wholly true but by the time of his visit vegetarianism was the norm for the Hindus of the higher classes. The non- vegetarianism in the Vedic period has given way to vegetarianism in the Gupta period. During the Vedic period, large number of animals were sacrificed and consequently eaten.

However, by the days of the Upanishads, which stressed the doctrine of non-violence, vegetarianism began to come into vogue. It also got impetus with the rise of Buddhism and Jainism.  The Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, who took initiatives for the spread of the Buddhism as a world religion, became enamoured of vegetarian food when he came under the influence of Buddhism and as such he forbade killing of many animals in the royal kitchen. But the Arthashastra, written in the Mauryan period, does not consider anything but normal. This treatise on statecraft lays down rules for the management of slaughterhouse and the maintenance of the purity of the meat. 

Even though the growth of Mahayana Buddhism and new Hinduism contributed to the growth of strict vegetarianism, meat eating was taken recourse to by members of tantric cults of Buddhism ad Hinduism.