On the outer walls of the Chennakeshava temple in Belur, built by the Hoysala kings in the 12th century, stands a woman holding betel leaves. But the tambula or betel appears nowhere in the Vedic Samhitas, the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. It was not part of that world.

It arrived much later, carried on trading vessels from the Indonesian archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, entering India during the Gupta period (around 4th century CE) through the eastern coast. Its presence, carved in stone into a temple wall in Karnataka, however, reveals how quickly the leaf had ceased to be a foreign import. No Hindu ceremony was considered complete without it.

 A woman holding betel leaves on the outer walls of the Chennakeshava temple

Mapped onto the divine

The betel leaf and areca nut were popular in East and South India before Sanskrit documentation. Tamil Sangam poetry reveals a world from 2,000 years ago that was familiar with them. Poems such as Pattinappalai describes the busy markets of Puhar, where betel leaves were sold; Maduraikanchi highlights the cultivation and sale of the leaves; while Kuruntogai reveals how the offering of the leaf with the areca nut was a symbol of hospitality and........

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