India is an important center
of rice cultivation. The rice harvesting area in India is the world's
largest.
The two major rice varieties grown worldwide today are Oryza sativa
indica and Oryza sativa japonica. According to research
studies, they owe their origins to two independent events of
domestication thousands of years ago.
Historians believe that while the indica variety of rice was first
domesticated in the area covering the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas
(i.e. north-eastern India), stretching through Burma, Thailand, Laos,
Vietnam and Southern China, the japonica variety was domesticated from
wild rice in southern China which was introduced to India before the
time of the Greeks. Chinese records of rice cultivation go back 4000
years.
The earliest remains of cultivated rice in the sub-continent have been
found in the north and west and date from around 2000 BC. Perennial wild
rices still grow in Assam and Nepal. It seems to have appeared around
1400 BC in southern India after its domestication in the northern
plains. It then spread to all the fertile alluvial plains watered by
rivers. Cultivation and cooking methods are thought to have spread to
the west rapidly and by medieval times, southern Europe saw the
introduction of rice as a hearty grain. Some says that the word rice is
derived from the Tamil word arisi.
Rice is first mentioned in the Yajur Veda (c. 1500-800 BC) and then is
frequently referred to in Sanskrit texts.
In India there is a saying that grains of rice should be like two
brothers, close but not stuck together. Rice is often directly
associated with prosperity and fertility, hence there is the custom of
throwing rice at newlyweds. In India, rice is always the first food
offered to the babies when they start eating solids or to husband by his
new bride, to ensure they will have children.
