Indian Pulses Through the Millennia 1

Abstract

Pulses, the food legumes, have been grown by farmers since millennia, and these have contributed in providing nutritionally balanced food to the people of India. While pigeonpea, black gram, green gram, lablab bean, moth bean, and horse gram have definitely originated and domesticated in the Indian subcontinent, there is a probability that chickpea and lentil (Indian type) were also domesticated in the Indian subcontinent. Pea, grass pea, and cowpea were introduced in India millennia ago. Only faba bean was introduced in medieval times. This paper briefly describes how the pulses constituted an important item of food, how these were cultivated, and how food preparations evolved. Though substantial progress has been made in evolving techniques to obtain high yields of pulses, their production per hectare has remained the same for the last two centuries. Lessons learned from this review have been listed. Pulses have been grown since millennia and have been a vital ingredient of the human diet in India. Even “balanced food” – as defined over 1000 years ago – consisted of pulses, besides cereals, vegetables and fruits, and milk products (Ayachit, 2002). Today, nutritionists tell us that pulses are important because they provide the essential proteins. Mankind began as a carnivorous species (and still is), but people who wanted to avoid killing animals for food, found out the utility of milk and milk products, and thus obtained nourishment with proteins of animal origin. Even today, pulses and milk provide the full complement of proteins to people who avoid eating meat. Including broad bean or faba bean (Vicia faba ), which never became popular except in some areas, India has been growing 12 different pulse crops (Fig. 1). The others are: chickpea ( Cicer arietinum ), pigeonpea ( Cajanus cajan ), lentil ( Lens culinaris ), black gram ( Vigna mungo), green gram or mung bean ( Vigna radiata ), lablab bean ( Lablab purpureus ), moth bean ( Vigna aconitifolia ), horse gram (Dolichos uniflorus ), pea ( Pisum sativum var. arvense ), grass pea or khesari (Lathyrus sativus ), and cowpea ( Vigna unguiculata ).