milk

[Asko Parpola]

The following papers may be helpful:

Simoons, Frederick J., 1970. The traditional limits of milking and  
milk use in southern Asia. Anthropos 65: 547-581.

Simoons, Frederick J., 1979. Dairying, milk use, and lactose  
malabsorption in Eurasia: A problem in culture history. Anthropos 74:  
61-80.

Best wishes, Asko Parpola



Quoting "Manring, Rebecca" <rmanring at INDIANA.EDU>:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> A anthropologist colleague here at Indiana, who is not on this list  
> and does not know Sanskrit, has asked me the question I paste below.  
>  My hunch is that Ayurveda materials may provide an answer for her,  
> but I'm not aware of any difference being made in terms of the  
> source of the milk. Knowing that some of you could probably  
> enlighten her further than I could, I ask your help:
>
>
>             I'm working on a section of a chapter on the history of  
> milk consumption in India.  In many of the secondary sources I'm  
> using,  "milk" is often used without any reference to its source.   
> The assumption seems to be that when the term "milk" is used it's  
> referring to cows' milk, but I wanted to find out if there is a  
> linguistic difference in Sanskrit between milk  - or any other dairy  
> product such as curd or ghee - from cows and that from water buffalo  
> (or goats or sheep for that matter).   I remain intrigued by the  
> rich descriptions of cows as providers of endless benefits (esp.  
> supplies of milk) in conjunction with seemingly generic references  
> to the uses of milk without regard to whether it's from cows or  
> other dairy animals that were clearly also used.
>
>
> Thank you for your assistance.  As I mentioned, she does not know  
> Sanskrit, so references you might provide should be either to  
> secondary sources, or translations, in English.
>
> Rebecca J. Manring
> Associate Professor
> India Studies and Religious Studies
> Indiana University-Bloomington
>
>