The term “grains,” as the modern world has come to know it, means cereal-type seeds that come mainly from the Grass Family, Gramineae. This includes wheat, barley, rice, wild rice, millet, sorghum, corn, maize, teff, oats, rye, and spelt. Gramineae has about 600 genera and around 10,000 species and is one of the most extensive families in existence. However, other grains or seeds, not in this family, are also used in the same manner. These include buckwheat, amaranth, and quinoa.
The five main grains of China have been referred to since very ancient times as being the foundation of staple grains found throughout the world. The Chinese term for grain is “ku” and applied not only to the five main types of grain but also to such other field crops as hemp and beans, which were also cultivated for their grains or seeds. Thus “wu ku” became the “five sacred” or main grains, an expression commonly found in the classical texts and understood to mean the following:
1) chi (setaria millet)
2) shu (panicum millet)
3) tao (rice)
4) mai (wheat and barley)
5) shu (legumes)
Some writers separate wheat and barley and combine the millet. Others, substituted ma (hemp) for rice, while others classified these grains into six categories. Still others referred to nine sacred grains, making up the numbers by using more specific names for wheat, barley, and large beans. The discrepancies do not end there as some lists also include the Chinese water chestnut, serving to illustrate even more that the term “ku” is not adequately translated by the English word “grain”. However, what is clear is that, in Chinese tradition, the rices, the millets, the wheats, and the barleys were of fundamental importance, as were legumes and hemp seed.
