The Maize Deception

It is widely believed and told that when the Portuguese came to India, they brought a lot of things with them such as samosa, potatoes, scissors, etc. For centuries now, the presence of corn in India was brought by the Portuguese. But recently I found a series of tweets by Savitri Mumukshu in which she brings up a forgotten research.

Maize is supposed to have been brought to India by the Portuguese as a New World crop. But clearly distinctive stone carvings of maize are clearly visible in at least 3 Hoysala temples at Somnathpur, Halebid & Belur in Karnataka.        

Authors Johannessen & Parker, Published a research paper "Maize Ears Sculptured in 12th and 13th Century A.D. India as indicators of Pre-columbian Diffusion", in Economic Botany providing archeological & literary evidence that Maize (corn) was present in India from 5th Century CE.

Their study revealed that Hoysala stone carvings of attendants to gods hold distinctively identifiable Maize ears with specific Mudras. They analyzed grain size, the number of rows, physical characteristics & shape compared to real specimens to identify the carvings as maize.

They ruled out possible hypothetical alternatives like Annona, pandanus, & mango fruits by comparing patterns. None of the alternative fruits displayed segments that are rectilinear or arranged in straight parallel rows aligned with the fruit axis, leaving maize as the only choice.

The research suggests that maize was used as a symbol of agricultural fertility and abundance. This is supported by Hindu manuals of temple iconography, which suggest golden-colored offerings representing abundance off Shri Vishnu, Devi Lakshmi, & their attendants.

The authors also discuss evidence of maize pollen from N. Kashmir at Tosh Maidan. The crores of maize pollen discovered at Tosh Maidan were analyzed & radiocarbon dated in zones as far back as 7600 BCE. So maize was likely present in India, several millennia ago.

Most importantly, they cite several literary references in Hindu literature dating to the 5th Century CE in texts such ass Shiva Purana, Garuda Purana, & Linga Purana which refer to maize, husks, grains, etc. and acts of harvesting, gleaning, breaking, & pounding maize.

In summary, numerous Hindu Temple carvings in Karnataka from the 12th and 13th Century along with archeological evidence of maize pollen and literary evidence in 5th Century Hindu texts all prove that maize was an Indian crop long before the Portuguese arrived in India prior to 1492 CE. The authors conclude that maize may have come through sailboats from South America to India earlier. But maize has existed in India for centuries and it is far more likely that sailors from South India were the ones who carried it to the Americas instead.

References to various grains such as maize are also found in Tamil Sangam literature. Pre-Sangam era architectural treatises are conjectured to refer to people from Mayan culture, indicating there may very well have been a contact between the two continents much earlier.

In reference to the research paper Maize Ears