EARLY HISTORY
India, the land that Kipling has called “the grim stepmother of mankind,” is, according to the best authorities, the original habitat of the sugar cane; and there is but little doubt that the properties of the plant were known to the Hindustani many centuries before the Christian era. Nothing concerning it is found in the Old Testament, the Talmud or in the oldest Hindu literature; and even in Buddha’s time (500 B. C.) it was little known.
The legend runs that sugar cane was created by the famous hermit Vishva Mitra to serve as heavenly food in the temporary paradise arranged by him for the sake of Raja Trishanku. It was the desire of this prince to be translated to heaven during his lifetime, but Indra, the ruler of the celestial realms, had refused to admit him. In order to gratify Trishanku’s wish, Vishva Mitra prepared a temporary paradise for him. When a reconciliation between Indra and Trishanku was brought about, the paradise was demolished and all its luxuries destroyed save a few, among which was sugar cane. This subsequently spread over the land of mortals as a lasting token of Vishva Mitra’s miraculous deeds.
Among the Chinese the first historical mention occurs in writings of the eighth century B. C., where the fact is recorded that their knowledge of sugar cane was derived from India. That it was considered of great value by the Chinese is shown by manuscripts of 200 B. C., wherein it is stated that the kingdom of Funan paid its tribute to China in sugar cane. From this it may be inferred that the secret of extracting crystals from the sugar-cane juice had not been discovered.
More than three centuries before Christ, the triumphant progress of Alexander the Great was halted upon the banks of the river Indus by the refusal of his troops to venture farther eastward. On their return journey, the Macedonian soldiers carried the “honey-bearing reed” to Europe.
A number of classical writers of the first century allude to the sweet sap of the Indian reed and to the granulated, salt-like product imported from India under the name of saccharum, or σάκχαρι, from the Sanskrit çarkarā, gravel, sugar. The names of sugar in modern European languages are derived through the Arabic from the Persian shakar.
The people dwelling in the valleys of the Ganges possessed a knowledge of boiling sugar juice, and this spread from there to China in the first half of the seventh century. Sugar refining, however, could not then have been known, for Marco Polo[5] states that the Chinese learned this from Egyptian travelers only during the Mongol period, some five hundred years later. Von Lippmann says that solid sugar began to be known in India somewhere between 300 and 600 A. D., probably nearer the latter date.[6] In the Middle Ages, the best sugar came from Egypt[7]; and in India today, coarse sugar is still called “Chinese” and fine sugar “Cairene” or “Egyptian.”
The Nestorians, a Christian religious sect in Gondisāpūr, India, planted sugar cane in Persia about 500 A.D. When Heraclius,[8] the Byzantine emperor, pillaged the palace of Dastargerd, Persia, in 627 A. D., solid sugar was taken among the other loot.[9] This is the first authentic evidence of crystallization. At the time of the Arabian conquest in the year 639, sugar was “prepared with art” in Gondisāpūr; and its manufacture on a large scale was carried on at Shuster, Sūs[10] and Askar-Makram[11] through the Middle Ages. Thaálibí, a writer of the eleventh century, says that Askar-Makram had no equal for the quality and quantity of its sugar, “notwithstanding the great production in Irāk, Jarjān and India.” It used to pay fifty thousand pounds of sugar to the Sultan in annual tribute.[12] Persian physicians of the time attributed extraordinary healing powers to sugar, and used it freely in the practice of their art.
Mohammed’s[13] religious wars carried the knowledge of sugar throughout the cities of the then civilized world. The Arabs first learned of it when they overran Persia. They took to it eagerly, and under their rule a great number of plantations were started. Artificial irrigation was employed in the growing of the cane, and the juice was expressed by means of millstones. At this period, however, sugar was looked upon as a rare and costly luxury, to be indulged in only by the wealthy, and sparingly even by them.