Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/190

152 A CHINESE ACCOUNT BY HIUAN TSANG for food, they are expelled beyond the walls of the town. The most usual food is milk, butter, cream, soft sugar, sugar-candy, the oil of the mustard-seed, and likewise all sorts of cakes made of corn. Fish, mutton, the flesh of the gazelle, and venison they eat generally fresh, sometimes salted; they are forbidden to eat the flesh of the ox, the ass, the elephant, the horse, the pig, the dog, the fox, the wolf, the lion, the monkey, and all the hairy kind. Those who eat them are despised and scorned, and are universally reprobated; they live outside the walls and are seldom seen among men. With respect to the different kinds of wine and beverages, there are distinctions in usage. Wines from the grape and the sugar-cane are used by the Ksha- triyas as drink; the Vaisyas take strong fermented drinks; the Sramanas and Brahmans drink a sort of syrup made from the grape or the sugar-cane, but not of the nature of fermented wine. The mixed classes and low born (Sudras) differ in no way (as to food or drink) from the rest, except in respect of the vessels they use, which are very different both as to value and material. There is no lack of suitable things for household use. Although they have saucepans and stew-pans, yet they do not know the steam-boiler used for cooking rice. Their household utensils are mostly earthenware, few being of brass; they eat from one vessel, mixing all sorts of condiments together, which they take up with their fingers. Gen- erally speaking, spoons and chop-sticks are not used. When sick, however, they use copper spoons.