Plantains or banana plants were cultivated in India from very early times. Religious rituals in Sastric tradition describe it as highly auspicious plant, particularly, for marriage ceremonies.
The discovery of banana phytoliths at Kot Diji, south Pakistan, a site from the Indus Valley civilizations which was inhabited around 2000 BC, indicates that this fruit already reached the northwest part of the South Asian continent.
Bananas are put into a variety of uses in India, especially in South India. Almost every part of the plant is used is in some way or another; hence it is popularly known as ‘Kalpatharu’.
The fruit is easily digestible, a good food for people suffering from gastritis and other stomach ailments. In Southern India, banana leaves were and still used as plates for serving and eating food.
In traditional medicine in India the golden banana is regarded as nature’s secret of perpetual youth, promoting healthy digestion and creating a feeling of youthfulness.
At an Indian wedding, the groom gives the bride a banana as a symbol of fertility. The banana is also the subject of Hindu art. In the Vedic tradition a banana grove is home to the monkey god Hanuman.
Descriptions of bananas are given in Greek writings on 327 BC in Indus Valley, during the expedition of Alexander the Great in India.
Most botanists believe that bananas were introduced from India to the Middle East and across North America by Arabs.
History of banana in India
Bananas represent on of the most widely traded agricultural goods in the world with annual export valued at five billion dollars. There are two main varieties of bananas, the fruit or sweet banana and the plantain.....
The most popular posts
-
Pisang Emas, also known as Pisang Mas, is a diploid cultivar of Musa acuminata. This banana variety, recognized by the code number MP3, is h...
-
Bananas after Harvesting The banana stem or bunch contain 56-14 hands (clusters of single bananas on the stem) and weighs 30-130 lb (13.6 – ...
-
Banana and Black Sigatoka Bananas rank fourth worldwide as the most valuable food crop, after rice, wheat and potatoes. Almost 80 million me...
-
Banana processing There are many products that can be obtained from banana processing. In addition to dried banana, other important product...
-
Banana and Nutrition Through out the western non-Mediterranean world, there has been since the 1970s a steadily rising awareness of the impo...