Camakam, anuvāka 4 — the grains, by name
The popular claimRice, barley, black gram, sesame, green gram, chickpea, wheat, lentil, millet, wild rice. The Veda's harvest list.
The fourth anuvāka is the one a farmer would recognise. It asks for food in general and then names the crops.
Nourishment
Ūrk ca me sūnṛtā ca me. — Nourishment, and kind true speech. Ūrj — sap, vigour, the strength in food; sūnṛtā — speech that is both true and pleasant.
Payaś ca me rasaś ca me ghṛtaṁ ca me madhu ca me. — Milk, sap, ghee, honey. The four liquids of the offering and the table.
Sagdhiś ca me sapītiś ca me. — Eating together, and drinking together. Sagdhi — a shared meal; sapīti — a shared drink. The Camakam asks for company at the table.
Kṛṣiś ca me vṛṣṭiś ca me. — Ploughing, and rain. The two things a crop needs.
Jaitraṁ ca ma audbhidyaṁ ca me. — Victory, and sprouting. Audbhidya — the breaking through of the shoot from the ground; the word is from udbhid, that which splits upward.
Rayiś ca me rāyaś ca me. — Wealth, and riches.
Puṣṭaṁ ca me puṣṭiś ca me. — What is nourished, and nourishing.
Vibhu ca me prabhu ca me. — The pervading, and the powerful. Sāyaṇa: wealth that spreads, wealth that commands.
Bahu ca me bhūyaś ca me. — Much, and more.
Pūrṇaṁ ca me pūrṇataraṁ ca me. — Full, and fuller.
Akṣitiś ca me kūyavāś ca me. — Imperishability, and — kūyavā — Sāyaṇa: bad grain, or the grain that comes from bad land; the reading is disputed, and some take it as a kind of grain in its own right. The petition includes the poor harvest, which is either a plea that it not come or an acceptance that it will.
Annaṁ ca me'kṣuc ca me. — Food, and freedom from hunger. Akṣut — no hunger.
The grains
Vrīhayaś ca me. — Rice. Vrīhi — the cultivated rice, Oryza sativa, in the plural: the rices.
Yavāś ca me. — Barley. Yava — the oldest cultivated grain of the Vedic people, and the one most offered in the fire.
Māṣāś ca me. — Black gram. Māṣa — Vigna mungo, the urad of the modern kitchen.
Tilāś ca me. — Sesame. Tila — the seed of the ancestral offering and of the oil-press.
Mudgāś ca me. — Green gram. Mudga — the moong.
Khalvāś ca me. — Chickpea, or a pulse. Khalva — Sāyaṇa: a kind of gram; identifications vary between chickpea and a variety of pea.
Godhūmāś ca me. — Wheat. Godhūma — "cow-smoke", the folk etymology; wheat, which the Taittirīya names and the Ṛgveda does not.
Masurāś ca me. — Lentil. Masura — the masoor.
Priyaṅgavaś ca me. — Millet. Priyaṅgu — a panic millet, Setaria italica, the foxtail.
Aṇavaś ca me. — Small millet. Aṇu — the fine grain; Sāyaṇa: a small-seeded millet.
Śyāmākāś ca me. — Panic-grass. Śyāmāka — Echinochloa, the sawa millet, eaten to this day on fast days.
Nīvārāś ca me. — Wild rice. Nīvāra — the uncultivated rice that grows without sowing, gathered by forest-dwellers and offered by ascetics.
What the list is
Twelve grains, from the rice and barley of the settled field to the wild rice of the forest, with the pulses and millets between. It is the crop-list of the Yajurvedic period, and archaeobotany from the Gangetic sites of that age finds nearly all of them. A reader who wants to know what a Vedic family ate has it here in the order they asked for it.
What this page does not say
It does not settle kūyavā or khalva, which the commentators did not, and it does not claim the section is anything other than a petition for food. It opens the thirty-eight items, and names the twelve grains, so that a listener who has heard vrīhayaś ca me yavāś ca me knows the Veda was asking for rice and barley.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.7.4 (Camakam, fourth anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's commentary on the Camakam; archaeobotanical identification of the grains follows standard references on Vedic agriculture
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