Locality and history of sugarcane pre-Tang
Sugarcanes in China typically belong to two variations namely the Saccharum sinense and Saccharum barberi. They require a temperate climate that has enough rainfall and sunlight to grow and so it has been historically found in Sichuan, Fujian, Yunnan and Guangdong.[1] Cane sugar has a long history in China with it first being recorded in the Chu Ci (楚辞）by Qu Yuan in the 3rd century B.C.[2] Other literary texts that recorded sugarcane and its byproducts included the yizhiwu and sanguozhi.[3] They are typically consumed in several manners: as a food to chew on, syrup or combined with other sweeteners such as molasses. With the extensive use of sugar in Chinese cuisine and these literary records, it may seem to construct a picture that sugarcane had widespread consumption but that was not the case. Before the Tang Dynasty, peasants mainly used molasses, honey or low-graded cane sugar called shatang. The finest available cane sugar would be shimi or rock honey though it can suggest a syrup at times too.[4] All of these suggests that the Chinese had the knowledge on sugarcane, its properties and its uses but they lacked the technology to process sugarcane thoroughly which is why they had to use molasses with it. Unfortunately, this also meant that the rate of degradation was faster as well.
Sugarcane’s relationship with Buddhism
Sugarcane is a crop that is central to Buddhism for several reasons. Firstly, Buddha was known to be the King of Sugarcane because of his ancestral ties to Iksuaku (iksu meaning sugarcane).[5] In addition, chewing sugarcane, syrup and shimi are some of the medicines prescribed to sick monks.[6] However, there was a distinction as stipulated in The Disciplinary Codes. Concentrated forms of cane sugar were only to be strictly offered to sick monks whereas those who needed a quick energy boost had to settle for watered down versions of cane sugar that were mixed with molasses.[7] Sugarcane is often used to symbolise abundance in the Buddhist doctrine as well. Also, in the Nirvana Sutra, sugarcane is described as the nectar of the gods. A monk’s spiritual journey is also likened to the process of sugar refinement where continuous boiling is required to get rid of impurities.[8]
Sugarcane and Buddhism in the Tang
In the Tang Dynasty (608-907) monastic social ties were used to learn the art of boiling cane sugar from India. In 647, Emperor Taizong sent an envoy to India where they successfully learnt the art of refining cane sugar.[9] According to the Tangshuangpu, they used “edge runners and hammer mills and extracting juice by diffusion with boiling water which gave an 85 percent extraction yield.”[11] Around 10 to 20 people were needed for the whole process. Apart from this new method, sugarcane plants began to be planted in other places such as Dunhuang.[12] This marks a shift which no longer limited the sugarcanes as an exotic product of the South.Unfortunately, there are few records which illuminates how the monks were able to acclimatise the crop to the arid environment of Dunhuang which lies in the northwest of China.
As much as it was a mission by the Tang court, there were also personal agendas by the Buddhist community because of the centrality of sugarcane to the religion. With the newly acquired technology which allowed for greater yield, the production of sugar rose as evidenced by the monastery usage. Sugar began to be incorporated in public rituals such as the Bathing of the Buddha, which was held on the eighth day of the fourth month.[13] The ritual was extravagant and required a bathing that used sugared water on all Buddhist images and icons in the city of Luoyang.[14] An estimated number of people at this ritual would be in the millions which meant that there would be extensive usage of the sugared water. As much as it reflects their piosity, it also reflects the increasing power of the monasteries because of the amount of sugar that would be used in the procession. Indeed, they had income from landownings, were involved in the investment of food-processing equipment and started to build up loyal followings for themselves.[15] The increased influence of the monasteries could also have encouraged the usage of sugarcane as medicine. Sugar was said to have properties that can “revive the weak [and] disguise the taste or enhanced the properties of other medicines.[16]
Further refinement of sugarcane in the Song
Tangshuang first appeared in the Song dynasty (960-1279) as described in the tangshuangpu. However, this is not the crystallised sugar we know today but rather, one that is like a rock candy. This was a further refinement of cane sugar in the Tang. It would only be in the Song that sugar became a commodity as seen from the incorporation of sugar into street food recipes such as the likes of Mrs Wu and her Records of Home Cooking around 1100. “Sugar was now found in recipes, and confections were available as a street food. Sugar was, for example, used in a quarter of the recipes in Mrs. Wu’s book. It sweetened pastries, was a seasoning for preserves, and was used with vinegar in a pickle of eggplant. It sweetened vegetable stuffings. Sugar topped deep-fried “donuts,” tenderized duck flesh, reduced the acidity of wine, preserved mandarin oranges for the longest possible time, and deodorized smelly foods. For more humble folk, the twelfth-century artist Su Han-ch’en shows a sweetmeat vendor selling candied fruits.”[17] However, the process of sugar becoming a commodity was a slow one. This is perhaps most evident if we were to consider the absence of sugar in the common Song saying to describe the Chinese essentials of life (柴米油盐酱醋茶）which translates to charcoal, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea. It is also during this dynasty which saw the export of sugar overseas to Southeast Asian kingdoms as a result of the rapid expansion of the sugar industry. In fact, sugarcane plantations were encroaching onto rice plantations as pointed out by Mazumdar.[18] From this, it could be seen that the sugarcane and its products have now turned into a lucrative commodity and is increasingly divorced from its initial religious connotations.
Bibliography
- Daniels, Christian K., Nicholas K. Menzies, Christian K. Daniels, and Joseph K. Needham. Science and Civilisation in China: Agro-Industries and Forestry. Agro-Industries: Sugarcane Technology. Vol. 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
2. Daniels, John, and Christian Daniels. “The Origin of the Sugarcane Roller Mill.” Technology and Culture 29, no. 3 (1988): 493-535. doi:10.2307/3105272.
3. Kieschnick, John. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. Princeton (N.J.): Princeton University Press, 2003.
4. Laudan, Rachel. “Buddhism Transforms the Cuisines of South and East Asia, 260 B.C.E.–800 C.E.” In Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, 102-31. University of California Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt7zw1x6.9.
5. Mazumdar, Sucheta. “A History of the Sugar Industry in China : the Political Economy of a Cash Crop in Guangdong, 1644-1834.” PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1984.
6. Mazumdar, Sucheta. Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology, and the World Market. Cambridge (Massachusetts); London: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1dnnb7n.
Footnotes
[1] Sucheta Mazumdar, “A History of the Sugar Industry in China : the Political Economy of a Cash Crop in Guangdong, 1644-1834” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1984), 40.
[2] Mazumdar, “A History,” 41.
[3] Ibid., 40.
[4] John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. (N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003), 252.
[5] Christian Daniels et al., Science and Civilisation in China: Agro-Industries and Forestry. Agro-Industries: Sugarcane Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 61.
[6] Christian Daniels et al., “Science,” 61.
[7] Sucheta Mazumdar, Sugar and Society in China: Peasants, Technology, and the World Market. (London: Harvard University Asia Center, 1998), 25.
[8] Kieschnick, “The Impact,” 251-52.
[9] Rachel Laudan, “Buddhism Transforms the Cuisines of South and East Asia, 260 B.C.E.–800 C.E.” In Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 168.
[10] Mazumdar, “A History,” 55.
[11] John Daniels and Christian Daniels, “The Origin of the Sugarcane Roller Mill.” Technology and Culture 29 (1988): 524.
[12] Mazumdar, “Sugar,” 27.
[13] Ibid.,25.
[14] Ibid., 25-26.
[15] Laudan, “Buddhism,” 149.
[16] Ibid., 169.
[17] Ibid., 175.
[18] Mazumdar,“History,” 63.