A fruit fit for emperors: The history of mangoes in India

Everyone knows how special mangoes are, but very few know that their significance is rooted in being ordinary. Long before (and after) mangoes were appropriated by the anointed, they were the fruit of the people. “The mango is sacred,” says Sopan Joshi, a journalist who has documented the history of the fruit in his recently published book, Mangifera Indica. Unlike the peepal (sacred fig) tree and banyan tree however, the mango tree isn’t so sacred that it cannot be cut. Therefore the fruit is easily consumed and transportable. 

Mango: The emperor’s fruit

Indian mythology is rife with references to the near mythical qualities of the mango. In both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, the fruit is associated with fertility, prosperity ,and devotion. From Ganesh winning a mango as prize for outsmarting his brother to Buddha meditating under a mango tree, in myth and literature, mango remains the king of fruits. Traditionally, the flower of the mango is seen as a symbol of love and it is believed that Kama, the Indian cupid, laced his arrows with mango blossom oil.

According to historian Sohail Hashmi, the flower of the mango is said to trigger love and was commonly combined with sugarcane juice to make an intoxicating drink. “It is called baur in Hindi,” he says, and those who are smitten by love or madness are referred to as baurana.

The Mughals, in particular, were documented lovers of the mango, with Babur reportedly being lured into defeating Ibrahim Lodi by the promise of a crate of mangoes. Reportedly Babur’s son Humayun, who spent most of his life in exile, demanded that mangoes be delivered to him wherever he was at the time. The Humayun Pasand, also known as Imam Pasand,  was said to be named after him, and the Chausa, by Sher Shah Suri after the Suri dynasty defeated Humayun’s armies in the Bihari village of the same name.

Babur laying on the Garden of Fidelity outside Kabul (Wikimedia Commons)

Mughal Emperor Akbar took the mango craze to new heights. According to Hashmi, Akbar is supposed to have planted an orchard with 100,000 mango trees, transforming the cultivation of mangoes into a full-time profession for a large number of gardeners.

The most famous connoisseur of the mango was the renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, whose dedication to the fruit is perhaps the greatest love story ever told. In his letters, Ghalib reveals an insatiable appetite for mangoes, calling them “god-sent” and lamenting that at age 60 he could no longer eat more than 10 or 12 in a single sitting.

Even contemporary authors fall prey to the hypnotising – often erotic – appeal of the mango. In Indian literature, “mangoes tend to be luminescent orbs dangling in steamy air, glistening with sweetness, sex and being itself, waiting to be plucked, caressed, birthed,” wrote Randy Boyagoda in 2011 for The New York Times.

Jahangir Entertains Shah Abbas ca 1620 (Smithsonian Museum)

The mango has also been popular in book titles: from Om Prakash’s Tryst with Mangos and Anees Salim’s novel The Vicks Mango Tree to Madhur Jaffrey’s Climbing the Mango Tree. So common is the reference to the fruit that Salman Rushdie, while receiving the lifetime achievement award from the Asian American Writers Workshop in 2013, said, “I have a rule that I offer to young writers. There must be no tropical fruits in the title. No mangoes. No guavas. None of those… Avoid that shit.”

According to Joshi, this infatuation with mangoes is contradictory to its appeal. “People want to bask in the glory of the mango, to feel special by association,” he says, but the mango itself is ordinary, rooted in nature and wilderness in stark contrast to its contemporary and international portrayal.  

Mango diplomacy

Up until the Mughal era, mango cultivation was largely restricted to the Indian subcontinent. According to Hashmi, during the reign of Akbar, there were only two types of mangoes: those that were juicy and those that were fleshy. However, during the rule of Portuguese general Afonso de Albuquerque (it is said that the Alphonso mango was named after him), the fruit was grown to suit a more European palate. Afonso cultivated variants of mangoes that were firm and sweet, and could therefore be cut and served instead of being squeezed and sucked. With that development, the large-scale grafting and export of mangoes began.

There are numerous examples of the popularity of mangoes across the world however, two in particular stand out. The first, for its representation of the cult of mango, and the second, for its diplomatic significance.

Chinese promotional poster of Chairman’s Mao’s mangoes

In 1968, Chinese Communist leader and founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, plunged his country into a decade of violence with the Cultural Revolution. As fighting erupted across the country, Mao sent 30,000 workers to Beijing to spread the gospel of Marxism. The workers were attacked by students, leaving more than 700 injured before the students finally surrendered. To thank the workers, Mao gave them 40 mangoes which had been given to him by Pakistan’s foreign minister Mian Arshad Hussain. 

His offering proved hugely successful.

The workers found hospitals that were willing to preserve the mangoes in formaldehyde and soon wax copies of the fruit emerged. The mango became a symbol of Mao’s influence and the shift of power from the bourgeoisie to the common man. Workers were expected to revere the gifted fruit, even chartering a plane to fly a single mango to a factory in Shanghai. The mango was compared to fruits in Chinese mythology such as the Mushrooms of Immortality and the Longevity Peach.  Little did they know that Mao himself disliked the fruit, so he decided to pass it to the workers.

The second example is from Pakistan. In 1981, India and Pakistan were engaged in an attempt at diplomacy with both countries looking to quell the tensions that had engulfed the subcontinent a decade earlier.

At the forests edge (Cleveland Museum of Art)

After ruling out the use of force in a June 1981 pact, Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq sent a basket of Anwar Rataul mangoes to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 2 July. However, less than a week later, the Pioneer reported that the mangoes gifted to India were originally India’s gift to Pakistan. Farmers from Ratol requested an audience with Indira Gandhi, explaining how the fruit’s roots were in India and not Pakistan.

Despite debates about the origin of the Rataul mangoes, the two countries avoided fruity brinkmanship and in 1997 and 2002, India and Pakistan once again exchanged the commodity. Commenting on the second instance, Pakistan newspaper Dawn expressed hope that “one day, perhaps they will come to a common conclusion: both Pakistanis and Indians, as much as their mangoes, are good in their common as well as different ways.”

Stories like these are often the dominant narrative when it comes to the mango. However, according to Joshi, the most interesting part of the fruit isn’t its cultural or diplomatic implications but instead, its evolutionary significance.

The people’s fruit

In the mid-19th century, mango farmers crossing Dasheri village in Lucknow had to pay a toll tax on transported mangoes. In protest, farmers are said to have abandoned a heap of mangoes in the village. From the rotting fruit emerged a tree which was eventually acquired by the Nawab of Lucknow. The Nawab was so captivated by the flavour of the fruit borne from this tree that he stationed soldiers to guard it and destroy all seeds of eaten Dasheris to avoid replanting.

Allegedly, it was only when a commoner succeeded in stealing a piece that the Dasheri mango spread to other parts of the country. However, the fruits from the mother tree still exclusively go to the Nawab’s family. Stories of prized mango trees, and closely guarded fruit exist across India. 

The coveted Kohitoor mango, cultivated in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, is so delicate that it has to be kept in cotton wool and turned every few hours so as to allow it to ripen evenly. Each Kohitoor mango can sell for up to Rs 800. Along with the Miyazaki mango from Japan, which costs around Rs 2.5 lakh per kilogram, mango varieties like the Kohitoor are unaffordable for most people, a far cry from the mangoes consumed by our forefathers.

Painted in 1590 by artist Sarjan, this illustrated folio from the Memoirs of Babur depicts a mango tree

Before British rule, mango groves and vatikas (gardens) were part of everyday infrastructure. From at least the 3rd century onwards, records exist of rulers planting mango groves along highways. Heavy roads were usually lined by mango trees on either side, giving birth to the term thandi sadak or cold road. According to Joshi, while these thandi sadaks are now confined to the realm of horror movies, they were once regular features of urban and rural landscapes.  

Vatikas were such an integral part of village life that older generations still remember attending weddings, festivals and sporting events in mango groves. “It was the basic infrastructure for all kinds of social and communal activities,” says Joshi, “which is why the mango remains so central.” In fact, the fruit was seen as an additional bonus, with the groves and their flowers assuming centre stage.

Crucially, the groves were open to everyone. Even if mango trees were planted on private land, any person was permitted to enjoy their fruit. In Vedic times, raw boiled mangoes were used for medicinal purposes and mango flowers were perceived as ceremonial offerings. The mango was the food of the poor, consumed during the pre-monsoon lean season when other items were unaffordable.

Why do we love mangoes?

Mangoes, like other tropical fruits, have evolved to suit their biological needs. By infinite design, the fruit is colourful, fleshy, sugary and satiating. According to Krish Ashok, author of Masala Lab (2020), “A fruit is a beautiful culinary construction, fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution to be perfectly enticing to the animals that eat it and, in the process, transport the seed far away to grow into another plant.”

The appeal of mangoes can also be attributed to the correlation between smell and nostalgia, as described by French novelist Marcel Proust in Remembrance of Things Past (1912). According to Columbia University biologist Stuart Firestein, our sense of flavour is mostly smell, which unlike our other senses, does not go through the sensory processing centre of our brains. Instead, the olfactory bulb connects to our amygdala (seat of emotion) and hippocampus (where memories are stored). 

According to Firestein, what’s astonishing is that our brains still contain emotionally charged memories from long ago, even though we may not be conscious of them. These memories are simply waiting to be activated by a flavour that reminds us of something we once tasted. Given the strong links that exist between food and social experiences (such as family, culture, and tradition), eating can be a consoling and nostalgic experience. Meals from childhood are powerful sources of nostalgia, which might explain why so many Indians associate mangoes with memories from a comforting past.