Aasha – and the Royal Game of Ur

 When Ruby met Finkel

This had been in my drafts folder ever since I came across its mention in Ruby’s book on the Cochin Jews. Recently Arun at Intach Palghat organized a Pallankuzhi session in Palghat, to bring about an understanding and some resurgence to the ancient Malabar game, and that sort of galvanized me into restarting this story. Let me first warn you, that many of you may feel you know the end, but there is a twist, so please read this in full, I assure you it will be well worth the effort.

Though it was a game well-known and prevalent among the Cochin Jews (you may wonder if it was the Black or the White Jews of Cochin, we will get back to the question a little later), it was not of any interest to anybody really, till a very famous Assyriologist delved deep and connected it to the ancient game which used to be played at Ur in lower Mesopotamia around 2,600-2,400 B.C or the Early Dynastic Period III. Like many other religions and cultures, migration can usually be traced from cultural objects and practices, and this makes it very clear that the Jews of Cochin had Middle Eastern origins.

Let’s first start with the discovery of the Ur Game, a thrilling game that requires you to race your pieces to the end of the board, by tossing dice. It was doubly interesting because it also foretold a bit of your fortune! Sir Leonard Wooley found some 20 square playing boards in a cemetery at Ur (a city in ancient Sumeria) in 1928, and this is known as the ‘Royal Game of Ur’, one of the oldest. The game as such was well known all over the Middle East and played by all classes of people, noble or not and though it was the national game in Mesopotamia for many years, it slowly vanished over time, after morphing into differing versions.

By chance, an antique dealer (originally dug up at Babylon, in the 1880s) brought a disintegrating tablet filled with cuneiform (wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit) script to the British Museum, and in the 1980s, a hundred years later, Dr Irving L. Finkel decoded and translated the text, to find that it was the rules for the Royal Ur game, written on clay circa 177-176 B.C by a scribe named Itti-Marduk-Balatu. Other translations and transliterations had been attempted, though not published, while another tablet had been found at Uruk, which was sadly destroyed in the WW I bombing, though its photo survived.

Putting it simply, each player threw a type of ancient (pyramid-shaped) dice and based on the number shown moved his piece that many numbers of squares. If he landed on a square already occupied, the opponent’s piece is sent back to the start, and so on. In addition to the game, which of course is based on luck and some strategy, certain squares had zodiac assignments, so provided predictions on various matters.

Additional details of the game came to light, such as the fact that the dice were made from sheep and ox knucklebones and that you had to hit a number before a player launched pieces on the board and began racing around it. According to the tablet, each player had five pieces (though in Ur, they each had seven) and the winner was the person who moved all of them off the board first. According to the tablet of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, whenever a player skips one of the boxes marked with a rosette, they must place a token in the pot. Over many centuries, this game gave way to more sophisticated games that were developed and the Royal Game of Ur died out nearly 2,000 years ago.

This was what Finkel believed, till he came across a photograph in a museum journal from Israel in the 80’s, which showed a scratched-up wooden board game that had belonged to the Koders who had migrated to Israel, from Cochin. He had never seen this game thus far being played in India, and the board had 20 squares, similar to the Royal Game of Ur. Knowing that Cochin boasted of an ancient Jewish community, which had migrated from Babylon to Cochin, over 1,000 years ago, he quickly made the connections and wondered how it had been preserved and played all these years.

As the story goes, Finkel contacted his pregnant sister Deborah Lionarons, who lived in Jerusalem, and asked her to go to the northern Kibbutz which has the settlements of the Cochin Jews. Finkel says - “I typed out a questionnaire and asked her to go door to door with a picture of the game and ask anybody and everybody if they could identify the picture and if they knew the rules of the game?”  As luck would have it a 70+ year-old woman, Ruby Daniel recognized the game, identified it as Aasha, which she used to play back home with her aunts, and sent back some rudimentary playing rules, through Deborah to Finkel.

Finkel was quickly on a plane to Israel and with the pregnant Deborah in tow, rushed to the Kibbutz, where Ruby lived. Now, readers, this is the same Ruby Daniels, whose marvelous account was brought to us by Barbara Johnson, a book I have used often in my studies and quoted from. When Finkel met the sprightly 70+ years old Ruby, Finkel then produced his version of the archaic rules to Ruby, who scoffed at it and said she would teach Finkel how they played it at Cochin, after which they played the game, sketched on a piece of paper. Now recall that Finkel was by then quite an expert at the game, had written a paper on the rules, and gifted a board to Gary Kasparov, though he was not familiar with the small changes for the Cochin Asha board. The game was played with cowrie shells for dice. By then, each player had 12 pieces, also shells, and the placement of the 20 squares had shifted slightly. But it was clearly the descendant of the game played in their ancestral homeland of Babylon 4,600 years ago. She told him it was a popular pastime for women and girls when she was growing up and that she had played it with her aunts. As it transpired, he beat her the first time and Finkel says - I did a terrible thing tactlessly and won, Ruby was hurt, her face fell…so they played again, and Ruby won.

Now we take it from Ruby who had taken her Aliyah and moved to Israel in 1946.

The ninth day of the month of Ab is a day of twenty-five hours of fasting and lamenting in memory of the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples of worship in Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. For some unknown reason, the Cochin Jews called that day “Seerya.” In Cochin, the first nine days of the month of Ab are days of mourning. We did not eat meat on those days. The shohet puts away his knife till the end of the ninth day. People did not dress well, and no weddings or any other celebration took place. Those nine days were considered to be a bad time for the Jews. It was said that you should not go to dangerous places or leave the children alone, or an old man called “Seeriya Mutha” would come after you.

The Jews had special games for that season, at the beginning of Ab. The men used to gamble with a special kind of coconut…..The ladies and girls usually played a game called Aasha during that season. We made circles on a piece of plank, something like the game called damka. Aasha is played with twelve small shells for each of the two players. You throw five larger cowrie shells with one of them broken on the back, and you move the shells according to the number you get from the throw.

We did not take this game very seriously then. It was just a board game like many other board games. But recently Mr. Koder of Cochin gave an old Aasha board to someone from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. They put it in their catalog, which came to the attention of Dr. Irving Finkel, an Assyriologist from the British Museum in London. The British Museum has collected a number of game boards from archaeological sites all over the world. One of these game boards which was found in Ur Kasdin (the country where Father Abraham was born) had some similarity to this Cochin game of Aasha. Though the boards were found, no rules were found.

It must have been in 1987- Dr. Finkel thought that this royal game from Ur must have gone with the Jews who escaped to South India from Babylon. By looking for someone who knows how to play this game of Aasha, they found me in Israel. I left Cochin forty-one years ago, and nobody has played this game since! There are only two or three of us left now from the old generation. So, I gave all the rules of the above game to Dr. Finkel for the book he is writing of all the games they found.

In those days we used to say that the twelve shells for Aasha represent the twelve tribes of Israel, who fought each other, and the five shells represent the fifth month of the Hebrew calendar, which is the month of Ab. But recently I was reading the story of King Shaul and King David. When Shaul died in the war with the Philistines, the kingdom should go to his son, but there were others who wanted it to be given to David. So Shaul’s commander in chief— Abner—and Yoab—the commander-in-chief of David—stood up for their masters. Both these men were helped by twelve great men each, and there was a great fight between these two sides when many people died. Perhaps this game of twelve killing each other is in memory of that. I am not sure.

One could assume that the name Aasha has probably been derived from Aseb, the Egyptian name of the game. Outside Egypt, versions of Aseb have also been found in Sudan, Crete, and other nations. Aseb is also a race game, in the same category as Senet and the ‘Royal Game of Ur’, but with a much shorter playing duration, and somewhat quicker and simpler, a game of chance with little strategy involved.

It is understood that this game was played by the Pardesi or white Jews of Cochin, but Ruby confirms that she and her friends played the game. But Ruby and others mentioned in her book are considered desi or black Jews (Ruby’s dissatisfaction with the white Jews and their demeaning attitude towards her community is clear in her accounts), so it seems to have been popular with all the Cochin Jews. Was it brought in by the most ancient Jews who came to Cochin following the upheaval at Jerusalem or was it a later import from the region through the Pardesi Jews? It remains unclear, but the fact of the matter is that the game as played in Cochin bears more resemblance to the ancient version at Ur, and had not mutated much over 4,600 years, compared to the evolutions of the game in the Middle East. Interestingly, the 1968 Cochin Synagogue (400th anniversary) souvenir states that the Asha board was on display when many luminaries including Indira Gandhi visited.

Though Finkel is now sure that the game moved South East to Cochin, he felt that the shape of the dice was at odds with the stick-type dice found in all other Middle Eastern versions. Having studied the migration of the Chess game from India, he decided to investigate further and check if the game had anything to do with the Indus Valley civilization, and still marvels at how the game lasted for 4,000 plus years, compared to new games which hardly last two Christmases!

Anyway, as it turned out, Finkel went back to India after reading an obscure Indian paper on the existence of similar board games in Vijayanagar and Orissa. The first sighting of the telltale squares on the ground was at a burning ghat in Nagarjuna Konda (dated 3^rd – 4^th century) in Andhra per Krishnamurthy who wrote it.  He asks - What on earth would a burning ground have to do with this? Did they play the game while waiting for the dead body to burn? It had nothing to do with the Jews of Cochin. Next, he went to Orissa and saw the same game on the 11th-century Kedareshwar temple grounds at Bhuvaneshwar, first thing in the morning – the game of Ur, again in India! Finkel says – It was like I saw the game wherever I went!  And he later saw the same game at Hampi and Sri Lanka. But barring Cochin, where it managed to survive in a virtual time capsule down into modern times, it became obsolete everywhere and there are no other documents or game rules from the other Indian locales. Finkel concludes therefore that the game probably originated in Dholavira in Gujarat circa 3,000 BC. Dholavira is located on the Tropic of Cancer, and is one of the five largest Harappan sites, also the most prominent of archaeological sites in India belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. It then moved westwards to the Babylonian kingdoms, and Ceylon, following the trade routes, and came back to Cochin. Are there other places where the game was played? Perhaps, only time will tell…

Finkel adds - At any rate, whatever the details may turn out to be, there can be no doubt that the Game of Twenty Squares, stretching in one form or another from the early third millennium BC to the end of the second millennium AD is the longest running board game in the history of the world.

Somebody who reads this carefully is bound to ask – what about the Zodiac sings in the Ur game? Finkel speculates on the astronomical significance and explains how certain squares portended good fortune: one square would bring "fine beer"; another would make a player "powerful like a lion."

According to Finkel’s paper, this is a summary

Pegasus -One who sits in a tavern

Aries -A beer vat(?) will turn away

Pleiades/Taurus -I will pour out the dregs for you

Gemini -You will find a friend

Cancer -You will stand in exalted places

Leo -You will be powerful like a lion

Virgo -You will go up the path

Libra -Like one who weighs up silver

Scorpius -You will draw fine beer

Sagittarius -You will cross the ditch

Capricornus -Like one who owns a herd

Aquarius -You will cut meat

While the Ur tablet scribe suggests that the 12 squares of the board associated with the zodiac represent the twelve portions of the heavens, Ruby connects them to the later Biblical story. Rather sophisticated, Finkel says that at least four out of five bird names were also used to denote astronomical constellations, showing that they had definite astral associations.

Reminding you of Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Irving Finkel is a very enthusiastic speaker, and his speeches are such great fun. You can follow his speeches on many topics and I will write about his trip to Alleppey to recreate the Ark of Noah, soon. Also, I will give you details of other clues about the way Vedic cultures and civilizations moved westward, and some related archeological finds.

Thanks again to Arun at Palghat who ran the Pallankuzhi challenge recently, which spurred me to action- There are multiple names for it in South India, Pallankuzhi in Tamil, Chenne Mane in Tulu, Aliguli Mane in Kannada, Vamana Guntalu in Telugu, Kuzhipara in Malayalam and Ekke in Konkani. While both Pallankuzhi and the Game of Ur are ancient board games, the key difference is that Pallankuzhi is a "mancala" style game where players move stones between pits on a board, capturing the opponent's pieces, when possible, while the Game of Ur is a race-based game where players move pieces around a set path using dice to determine movement.

While many people believe it originated in India, again a topic which needs investigation like this, it is thought that it came out of the Arabic ‘mancala’, a game which perhaps originated in Africa. It was played in groups or between two and in theory can go on for days! The game used to be popular among children and older people and encouraged children to master counting and improve their hand-eye coordination. While we know this deceptively simple game of 'pits and pebbles' was played in ancient Ghana and Sudan as long ago as 1600 BC, a stone board discovered in Jordan may date back to 5,870 BCE. That would place Mancala in the Neolithic era, or the Stone Age! The version known as Owari is still popular in West Africa and the Caribbean with local and international tournaments, while the version popular in southern India is called Pallankuzhi.

I am sure all this would have delighted some readers, bored others to death, or wasted a perfectly valuable 30 minutes for an unfortunate few. But spend a while in thought, on how things happen, and what you can learn from something you find in your backyard if you relentlessly went after it!

References

Ruby of Cochin - An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers– Ruby Daniels, Barbara Johnson

The Royal Game of Ur – Persian Wonders Dr Irving Finkel

The Royal Game of Ur - Play the Oldest Board Game on Record – Deb Amlen (NY Times – 17-11-22)

Traditional board games: From Kochi to Iraq – S Priyadarshini (The Hindu, Oct 1,2015)

It isn’t a game for idiots - GUERNSEY PRESS – 24-06-24

Playing with the past: a framework for studying south Asian board games - Ramesh Gowri Raghavan (Instucen Trust 2019)

 

Pics – courtesy Wikimedia, thanks to the authors. 

Aasha board - Asha game board, Cochin, India, Early 20th century, Wood and cowrie shells, H: 12; L: 50; W: 22 cm, Gift of Satoo and Gladys Koder, Cochin, B84.0315, Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Oleg Kalashnikov

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Idli – A Delectable Dish

And its origins

Without a doubt, it is a favorite of mine, and I eat a couple of fluffy Idli’s manufactured to perfection by my wife, for breakfast, at least two or three days every week. Sometimes, it is eaten with chutney, or with onion chutney (Ulli Sammandhi) made the Palghat way, but most of the time with gunpowder or Chutney podi. We have quite an assortment of these podi’s - 777, Annapurna, Brahmins, etc., on standby in the cupboard, but again, the homemade version Shoba makes rules the roost. Surely, when those steamed Idlis are dipped in the podi mixed with some oil, and chomped down, the day usually goes well.

A few studies and research have been carried out on the origins of this simple soul food, and it can be seen in the poetic works of erstwhile writers and poets, who have not failed to praise versions of the dish, though it may not have been quite the Idli we eat today, but a primitive version cooked in some fashion, perhaps not steamed, and using only certain kinds of lentils. Using terms such as snow-white incarnations of the celestial moon on your plate, it was equated to solidified lunar rays, made from the foam of the celestial Ganga, settling down as an early morning frost, or even as globular deposits of boiled nectar!! And these mentions go as far back as 1,000 years!

Over the years it has found great popularity, and the most fervent Idli ambassador has been none other than our eminent politician and writer Shashi Tharoor. His stories and experiences with the dish are fascinating and his ferocious counterattack during the infamous Idli-gate on the Brit Ed Anderson, who had the temerity to call it the most boring food in the world, enlivened social media for some days! Then again, other luminaries have expressed a fondness for it, Indira Gandhi was one, and now there is US Vice President Kamala Harris who seems to enjoy the dish.

To those who have not had the good fortune of eating Idlis, I suggest that they head to the nearest South Indian restaurant, most big cities boast one or two and order a plate (yes, they are certified Kosher, halal in NYC). They are white steamed soft and porous items, circular of course, and made of a batter of fermented rice and lentils (urad dal) mixed in an exact proportion, with some fenugreek. The type of rice and the proportions are a closely held secret in many homes, and are said to be passed on from mother to daughter or daughters-in-law! The soaked pulses are ground in a mixer (stone grinders were in vogue during my childhood days) and allowed to ferment overnight before it is steamed in a special-purpose Idli steamer, which has several racks with depressions where the batter is poured. The chutneys that go along with them are a chapter by themselves, there are so many varieties and then there is the veritable sambar which it is usually paired with. Once a South Indian breakfast staple, it has become a healthy choice in most Indian restaurants, eaten at other times as well, or always part of the breakfast buffets. In some Indian cities, one can also come across Idli corners or roadside thattukada vendors serving it at nightfall.

There is no dearth of articles purporting to be the final word on the history of the dish, many have been printed, published, copied, and forwarded, but by and far are adapted using the conclusions arrived at by the esteemed KT Achaya, India’s well-known food historian. Some have thus concluded that it was imported from Indonesia while others have happily accepted the incredible conclusions attributed to Lissie Collingham and others, of its purported Arab origins. Anyway, I decided to don the thinking cap, peruse available sources, and draft here a concise study on its origins. So, here goes!

At the outset, one aspect is very clear, that a version or versions of the dish were popular in the Kannada-speaking, Marathi, and Gujarati areas of the Indian West Coast. Tamil, Telugu, and Malayali regions seem to have been happy with the Kanji (rice gruel) for breakfast, until the 19^th or 20^th century, though scant references to tiffin’s can be found here and there, including the Dosa, mainly as tiffins. The first mentions of the Idli as a food item are therefore found in Marathi and Kannada writings, as uncovered by PK Gode and HG Narahari. As a popular dish, it moved with the Kannadigas and Marathas to the Tamilakam, post the Vijayanagar epoch, as well as Andhra and much later, to Malabar and Travancore. However, as you will see later, there is a potential for a Tamil origin as well.

Let’s start by taking a look at the earliest study on the subject, conducted and documented by Prof PK Gode from Pune. Parashuram Krishna Gode, a Sanskrit and Prakrit scholar, and Indologist, was the first Curator of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, and cultural history was his forte. His 1955 article attempts to tabulate the advent of the dishes Idli and Dose between 1100 and 1900, and provides many a reference to their early versions, reading through ancient works.

Gode’s conclusions mention that the Sanskrit Manasollasa of the Chalukya King Someswara composed in 1130 was the earliest work mentioning something similar to the Idli. He identifies the Idarika as its possible precursor prepared from the fine flour of masa (beans) made into small circular balls; which were cooked and then spiced by the use of the powder of marica (black pepper), ghee, hingu (Asafetida), and the powder of jiraka (cumin-seeds). A second reference in Prakrit, the Supasanahacaria composed by Lakshmanagani in 1143 AD, tells the story of a young wastrel Datta who is forever enjoying life and wanders around carrying with him his favorite foods, and among many others is listed the Iddariya or the Iddarika. All this shows us that iddariya enjoyed some popularity as a delicious dish in Gujarat and Saurashtra in the first half of the 12th Century. He adds that though Idli is a Canarese and a South Indian dish, it appears to have been popular in Gujarat in the 12th Century and Maharastra up to the 16th Century, as will be seen from Saint Ekanatha’s mention of it among other popular dishes like puriya, kshiraghariya, etc. As an additional South Indian link, he locates it the Ramanuja Champu 1600 AD, which identifies Idli to be round, and made fragrant with ginger, cumin seeds, and asafetida (ramatha) and concludes with a reference to the mention of Idli in the Bjojanakuthuhala from the 17th century written by Raghunatha Navahastha, showing that it was popular in Maharashtra in the 17th century.

Nevertheless, the 20^th century Marathi Sabdakosha mentions the word idari-li as Canarese and explains it as a dish made of the fermented flour of beans (udada) and rice with salt, etc - and that the idari is said to resemble the full moon in point of shape and color (namely circular shape and whiteness. In conclusion, he brings up the Canarese dish Kadabu but is not inclined to accept it as a relative of the Idli since the preparation is quite different. He then suggested that Canarese scholars should make further studies to determine the exact connections.

Quick to answer Gode’s request was HG Narahari also from Poona, who perused Canarese works and opined thus in his paper ‘Idli in Kannada literature’.

His investigation reveals that - Iddarige or Iddalige appears to be the name by which the dish, now popular as Idli, was known to the Kannadigas of old. He locates an early mention of the Iddarige in the Supasastra of Jayabandhunandana, dating to the early 10th century or thereabouts, a dish prepared from ground black gram (urdina bele), mixed with curd and water and spiced with Asafoetida (In-gu), Cumin seeds (jirage), Coriander leaves (Kottumbari) and black pepper (menasu). Following this, he sees it in the Parsvanathapurana of Parsvapandita (1205 AD) mentioned with other dishes, as Iddalige, full of flavor and served floating in melted butter! The Santisvarapurana of Kamalabhava (1235 AD), likens Iddaliges served for dinner, to balls of the foam of the celestial river Ganga. Mangarasa III (1508 AD) in his Samyaktvakaumudi mentions it as Iddalige, while the Saundaravilasa of Annaji (1600 AD) shows that it was served in a hotel and likens its brilliance to the cool-rayed moon! The Jain poet Terkanambi Bommarasa in his Uddina Kadabu (1485 AD) likens it to globular deposits of boiled nectar or to solidified lunar rays! But Narahari concludes his study with a cryptic remark - In Karnatak at least the modern Idli is nothing more than a diminutive form of the ancient giant dish Huygadabu. Large vessels specially designed for its preparation are to be found even now in all those Karnataka homes which still keep the old tradition.

But the question remained- while Iddarige was a lentil dish cooked in some way, there is no mention of fermentation or steaming as well as the addition of rice as associated with Idlis. To confuse the matter further there was this oft-followed dictum which went back to the Manu Smriti – verses 5.9,5.10 which in essence stated- All soured substances except Curd are forbidden – with soured defined vaguely as - soured substances that have become sour by fermentation; and those that turn sour by the contact of flowers and roots.  Now that presents a perplexing question – was it for that reason only eaten by lower classes, thereby rarely getting a mention in Brahmanical texts? I don’t know, let’s leave it there for now. I searched around for the Huyga dabbu and such large vessels, but could not find any, readers are welcome to add or comment on this, as well as the similarity to the kadabu.

Now let us get to the works of KT Achaya, oft mentioned, quoted, and attributed. Using words carefully, he introduces the steamed Idli as a rice cake, and that while Tamil Sangam literature from the sixth century mentioned the dosai, they did not mention the Idli, though they are mentioned in Kannada literature four centuries later. He adds that the Dukkais are mentioned in Gujaratiu literature from 1068, though Dhoklas are only mentioned in 1520, as a steamed dish. He then goes on to list the inferences of Gode and Narahari, and agrees that three elements of Idli making are missing – namely use of rice, fermentation and finally steaming. He also mentions that Urad dhal outcomes are off-white, and snowy white results poetically described are difficult to explain, moreover, the vasena-polu from Andra for example is a urad dal or millet steamed cake, like the iddarige, but different from the Idli (I will get to this later, it is similar to the Konkani Moode). He introduces the reference to the 920 AD work Vaddaradhan by Shivakotyacarya’s which mentions it among the 18 items to be served by a lady offering refreshments to a Brahmachari!

Indonesian connection

At this stage, Achaya introduces the foreign element, to close the loop concerning fermentation and the use of rice. Quoting him - The Indonesians ferment a variety of products (soybeans, groundnuts, fish) and have a product very similar to the Idli, called kedli. It has been suggested that the cooks who accompanied the Hindu kings of Indonesia during their visits home (often enough to look for brides) between the eight and twelfth centuries AD, brought innovative fermentation techniques to South India. Perhaps the use of rice along with the dhal was an essential part of the fermentation step which requires mixed microflora from both grains to be effective. Yeasts have enzymes which break down starch to simpler forms, and bacteria (which dominate the Idli fermentation) carry enzymes for souring and leavening through the formation of carbon dioxide gas.

I could not find any dish named Kedali in Indonesia (there is a kedali tree in Java – Radermachera in Malaya), so it became apparent that Achaya was perhaps phonetically connecting the Idli to the Tape Ketan or Tape Ketella, which however is nothing like Idli. The Ketan is a combo of ragi and rice packed in leaves, while the Ketella uses casava or tapioca instead of rice. It is fermented, sweet, and alcoholic. Kedli and KIdli also failed to connect, the steamed rice cakes of SE Asia are named lontong/ketupat/nasi impit – where cooked jasmine rice is packed with fragrant pandan leaves, aromatic lemongrass, and a dash of salt, into banana leaves boiled, and served sliced as disks. The Konkani moode looks somewhat similar but is made differently. BTW, Achaya also mentions a Czech dish named Knedlik (pronounced needleek), a similar steamed product.

But then again, I could be wrong, there may have been something called Kedli, readers please direct me to any Indonesian site which explains this and I will correct this paragraph. Until this is proven, I can only say that the Kedli theory is just a suggestion.

Arab connection

This was the one that rankled, and is quoted by all and sundry - Another theory argued by other food historians like Lizzie Collingham from Britain and Kristen J. Gremillion from America, claim that Idli was actually introduced by Arab traders, when they married and settled down in the southern parts of India during the 9th to the 12th century. It is said that these Arab settlers were particular about their diet, and often wanted halal food but couldn’t clarify that too well to the local populace, which led to a lot of confusion.

Arabs started to make rice balls, which would be “flattened and eaten with a coconut paste”, as noted in ‘Encyclopedia of Food History’, edited by Collingham and Gordon Ramsay of Britain, Oxford University Press, and ‘Seed to Civilisation, The Story of Food’, by Heiser Charles B, Harvard University Press, 1990. But this is being questioned by modern food historians like Lizzie Collingham, Kristen Gremillion, Raymond Grew, Makhdoom Al-Salaqi (Syria), Zahiruddin Afiyaab (Lebanon), among others and references available at Al-Azhar’s University Library (Cairo, Egypt) also suggest that Arab traders in the southern belt gave Idli when they settled there after marrying girls from that part.

This was quite strange as an inference and appeared concocted. I could not find this encyclopedia, but Collingham in her book Curry, makes only a brief mention of Idlis, nothing about its origin, Ramsey has made a visit or two to S India for his TV series, Gremillion deals with Anthropology and American Indians, and the listed Arab historian’s unknown figures. Heiser does not mention Idlis, Mary Ellen Snodgrass who compiled an encyclopedia, connects Idli to a 6^th-century Tamil festival booklet, sans details.

Coming to the point, there are many documents and details of what the Pardesi Arabs and local Moplahs, Marakkars, and Labbais who were their progeny, ate from their early contacts. Idli was not among them, though many other rice items such as the Pathiri (rice roti), Pongappam (fermented rice batter appam), Kinnathappam (steamed sweet rice cake), and many others, steamed, fried dried or in oil figure, but nothing close to Idli’s – a dish which is ground, fermented and steamed.  There was no difficulty with halal, they could procure live animals (except cows) when they wanted and halal meat was never an issue in Malabar, Konkan, or along the way. Fragrant meat curries, flavored rice dishes, and sweets have been a fine result of this intermingling of cultures, but surely not the Idli.

One could ruminate on whether the Ethiopian Injera made of flatbread fermented teff flour and then steamed had some connections, but it is tenuous. Throughout Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, and erstwhile Persian regions, as well as Turkey, I have not come across anything like the Idli, though they have flour pancakes.

A natural development? Chinese influence?

Xuan Zang mentions in the seventh century AD that Indians did not have a steamer used for cooking rice, but the prevalence all over the country of numerous steamed dishes like the Idli, dhokla, modakam, and puttu indicates that steaming was quite common, and one can see that a special pot was not needed for this. Nevertheless, special-purpose Idli steamers did make their entry, like the Idli-Patram, over time. A 12^th-century account related to Prithviraj Chauhan’s court (1149-92) mentions a Khirora steamed rice ball, making it clear that steaming was prevalent.

Achaya wonders (1994) if the Thosai mentioned in 6^th-century literature was fried or if it was fermented batter spread on a tava, predating the Idli. He also records that the circular appam is mentioned together with the idi-appam in the 5^th century Perumpanuru and that it was fermented rice batter.

But there is a potential Chinese link, and a link to the old Tamilakam Ma'abar which included the parts of today’s Kerala – Tuticorin (Kayal) and Quilon were the ancient ports where Chinese traded in the past. Quilon and Kerala have so many Chinese links and you can see significant Chinese influence – the fishing nets - Cheena Vala, chillies - Cheena Mulaku, pots -Cheena Chatti, Cheena Bharani, Cheena padakkam, and so many more. There were many other ports in the Tamilakam where the Chinese traded.

The earliest Chinese links date back to the 7^th century and Chinese settlements existed at Quilon (see my article Quilon and its trade links with China) with traders and sailors spending many months living there. That said, it is only natural to assume that dumpling steamers were introduced in Quilon/Tuticorin by the Chinese and possibly adapted by the locals to make versions similar to the Idli. They must have used a version of the dosa batter (rice plus urad) and steamed it to make large Idlis.

I am inclined to believe that a rice version found popularity in the Tamilakam like the Thosai mentioned in the 6^th century. In the Portuguese annals, one can find references to the fried version in the 16th century (1534) – the Paniyaram, its seller and her husband’s torn ear lobe, which started a huge caste war between the Paravas and the Marakkars/Labbais of Tuticorin and ended up with the arrival of Joao Da Cruz, St Xavier and the conversion of the entire clan to Christianity! (for details refer to my earlier article on the subject). The Paniyaram, a fried version of the Idli batter with spices seems to be more Chettinad than Muslim.

My conclusion is that the old versions of Idli were perhaps closer to the flat, large steamed Ramasseri or Kancheepuram Idlis. Later versions became smaller with the development of fine Idli patrams in rich households, as we see them today. This requires further study, and I will get to it while studying appams and the puttu.

If indeed the Idli was a natural development from the iddarike and the dhokla, it traveled with the Kannadigas and Marathas to Madurai where they settled down. The Siva Pallakiseva Prabandham, a seventeenth-century work by King Sahahaji, mentions Idlis. Perhaps the Sambar, apparently of Maratha origin, came to be paired with Idli’s during the reign of the Maratha kings at Madurai, then again as it was earlier popular in Maharashtra, the use of dal curries with Idlis may have started even earlier.

The popularization in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay was by Udupi and Palghat Iyer hotels that initially served Madrasi bachelor employees on the prowl, a quick and cheap breakfast. Thankappan Nair explains its introduction in Calcutta over many a page, well worth reading.

We have so many versions today, the Rava Idli (I recounted its story some years ago), the Kanchipuram Idli, The Mini and masala Idli, the Oats Idli, Quinoa Idli, Pesarattu Idli, Paneer Idli, Sweet Idli, the Khusboo Idli (named after the unconventional Tamil cinema star - spongy because of the use of castor seeds) and many more to come.  Idly upma from leftover Idlis proved to be a good idea! The Konkani Moode is cylindrical and steamed in screw pine leaves. The unconventional ones that most readers may not know are the two varieties from Palghat, namely the Ramasseri Idli (pictured above on banana leaves) and the Rangayyan or the spicy ‘Brahmin meat’ Idli.

Idli’s were served in certain legs of Indian Airlines in the past (an irate passenger complained of getting a toothpick in his Idli at 30,000’– now if you wonder how that came to happen, that is indeed how a housewife knows if the Idli is cooked – push in a toothpick, if the batter is seen sticking to the withdrawn pick, it is not yet ready), but I am not sure they do these days. Though not connected, I can tell you that Chinese domestic flights serve Kanji for breakfast and they are quite good!

According to Thankappan Nair’s research on Idli eating competitions, K Ramamurthy who gobbled 34 Idlis in 15 minutes for a Delhi competition in 1976 was the first national champion, followed by the 11-year-old Swetha. The 6-footer Easwara Iyer, a Lok Sabha member, and a stalwart of the Bhim club in Cochin unfortunately withdrew after eating just 5 (I can easily beat that) in 1980, but Gopakumar and James Koshy triumphed eating 27 each. Sadly, Prasad of Kollengode died after failing to swallow what he ate, choking on his Idlis, though winning the local 2-minute eating contest in 2001 at Vattekad. But Theeta Rappai, the monster eater from Trichur beats them all, he used to eat 75 in a sitting!

The story of the venerable Puttu, another favorite of mine, and further exploration of Chinese links will follow, but then, here at home, our stock of Idli in the fridge has been depleted, so let me digress and head to the kitchen to convince my better half in completing a new batch for next week.

References

Indian Linguistics Vol 15, 17 (papers by PK Gode and HG Narahari)

South Indians in Kolkata – P Thankappan Nair

A historical dictionary of Indian food (1998) – KT Achaya

Indian food: a historical companion (1994) – KT Achaya

Setting the Table - KT Achaya’s pioneering scholarship on Indian food, Mayukh Sen Caravan

Historic Alleys - Quilon and its trade links with China

Maddy’s Ramblings - Sir John of the Cross – The First Malabar Envoy to Portugal and The torn earlobe and the horse trader

Idli gate – some details

VKN Story - Varada narrates Prathal  

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