Fwd: 'two queries'

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Thomas Zumbroich <zumbroich at YAHOO.COM> wrote:  Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:10:26 -0800
From: Thomas Zumbroich <zumbroich at YAHOO.COM>
Subject: 'two queries'
To: INDOLOGYCOMMITTEE at liverpool.ac.uk

        Dear managers of the list,

could you please post the following response to the ongoing thread on the history of betel chewing in India:

'Dominik Wujastyk kindly alerted me to the query on this list about the history of betel chewing in India. A recent paper of mine entitled 'The origin and diffusion of betel chewing: a synthesis of evidence from South Asia, Southeast Asia and beyond' in the latest issue of the Electronic Journal of Indian Medicine can be read at: http://journals.indianmedicine.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/ejim/vol1/03/63-116/

My particular interest was the origin of the custom and its gradual dispersion across Asia, but some of the Sanskrit literature discussed in previous posts is covered on pp. 89-96.  In short, betel chewing might have reached South India as early as the middle of the 2nd millenium B.C.E. and can be traced in the north in the centuries before the common era.  My paper contains various references that might help, and I will be happy to respond again as the discussion evolves.'

Thank you!

Thomas Zumbroich