Sesame oil is absolutely everywhere in Ayurvedic literature.  And as Paturi pointed out, there's a fourteenth-century metarule presented by Śāraṅgadhara that "oil" means "sesame oil" unless otherwise stated.  No, I'm not aware of any name similar to /sesame/ that isn't a loanword.

Watt is always good: https://archive.org/details/commercialproduc00wattuoft/page/980/mode/2up

If one knew where to look, there is probably more up-to-date information from genetics about the very early history and distribution of the plant.

Best,
Dominik

On Wed, 26 Apr 2023 at 04:21, Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:
Dear list friends,

A non-Indological colleague asked me whether there are any references in
ancient Indian literature to the medicinal use of sesame oil.

Related: is there any Indian word in any language for 'sesame' that
resembles 'shumshum', 'simsim' or 'shamashammu'?

Any information concerning these two questions would be most welcome.

RZ

--
Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos / ಪ್ರೊ. ಡಾ. ರೊಬೆರ್ತ್ ಜೆಯ್ದೆನ್ಬೊಸ್
Institute of Indology and Tibetology
Department of Asian Studies
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (University of Munich – LMU)
Germany


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