As per ancient Sanskrit literature, which of the following spices was called Yavanapriya?

Question

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Correct — C, Black pepper. 'Yavanapriya' literally means 'dear to the Yavanas', and in Sanskrit texts it is a name for black pepper (Piper nigrum). The Yavanas were the Greeks and, by extension, the westerners who traded with India; pepper grown on the Malabar coast was the single commodity they wanted most, and Roman writers themselves record how much bullion left the empire to pay for it. The name is therefore a trade nickname preserved in literature — the spice the foreigners loved.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Ginger (Sanskrit ardraka / shunthi) was certainly exported westwards, but the term Yavanapriya is not used for it in Sanskrit sources.  (b) Nutmeg is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas, not to India; it entered Indian trade much later and has no place in the early Yavana pepper trade.  (d) Cardamom (ela) is a genuine Western Ghats spice and a real export item, which makes it the most tempting wrong answer — but the Yavanapriya label belongs to pepper alone.

Concept: In the first centuries CE, peninsular India was the western end of a busy maritime trade with the Roman world, run on the monsoon winds. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek merchant's handbook of the 1st century CE, names Muziris and Nelkynda on the Malabar coast as the ports where ships loaded pepper, and Roman gold and silver coin hoards found across peninsular India show what was paid in return. Sanskrit and Tamil literature preserves the memory of these traders as Yavanas, and preserves their appetite for pepper in the very name Yavanapriya.

State PCS 2026 Q57 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q57 — History PYQ with Answer