Talk:Bhangi-subjee

Talk

Discussion for: Bhangi-subjee • View • Links • Related changes

Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.

Page scope

The page treats bhangi-subjee, the ganja drink with basil seed recorded in Mysore in 1893.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

• McDonnell's Mysore memorandum (Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, vol. III, pp. 143–144) is cited from the page images. The bhang recipe, item 3(a), is a table of 14 ingredients with quantities in grains and prices; the article names the ingredients and the ganja quantity only. The bhangi-subjee entry, item 3(b), is on p. 144.

Two senses of subjee

• Here subjee is the seed of basil, which McDonnell identifies as Ocimum basilicum. Elsewhere in India subjee (sabzi, subji) was a name for bhang itself; the Bhang article and the Madras evidence (vol. VI, p. 190, "Subji and bhang as known here are preparations made to drink from ganja") use it in that sense. The title keeps McDonnell's form so the two are not confused.

Reading of the recipe

• McDonnell writes: "All the ingredients used for bhang (3a) above, except sugar and milk are used for the 'bhangi-subjee.' Water is substituted for milk." The article reads this as all the ingredients except sugar and milk, because the next sentence replaces the milk with water.

Is it cannabis?

• The Mysore bhang drink on which it is based is made from ganja, the first ingredient of McDonnell's table.

Kind and plant part

• Drink. Flower: ganja.
• Still made: not known from the sources cited.