Talk:Mahadeva

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Page scope

Mahadeva treats the former cannabis growing area of Barabanki district, where ganja was cultivated until the district authorities forbade it, and the Mahadeva ganja named from a place there. The wild bhang of the districts to the north is North Avadh. The district as an administrative unit is treated at Barabanki District.

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why the area is mapped

• The Commission's report finds "some evidence that cultivation was formerly carried on in some of the Oudh districts until it was suppressed by authority", and holds that "the Mahadeva ganja got its name from a place in Barabanki where the cultivation was formerly carried on" (Hemp Drugs Commission report, vol. I, para. 108).
• Barabanki's witnesses. Jaideo Sahay, officiating tahsildar of Nawabganj (witness 61): ganja cultivated by the Kabariyas at Lodhaisur, tahsil Fatehpur, about a thousand maunds, forbidden by the district authorities. Kundan Lall, drug contractor of Nawabganj (249): ganja "used to be grown in Mahadeva through cultivators; but its cultivation has now been stopped".
• Other witnesses. Radha Kishun of Lucknow (247): ganja "made in Mahadeva, district Barabanki", given up "since ten or twelve years". Hakim Muhammad Ali of Hardoi (175) and Thakur Parshad of Hardoi (251): Mahadeva ganja formerly made in Nawabganj and Sitapur.
• The title is the sources' own name for the ganja and the place. Lodhaisur (Vol. I prints Loohaisar) is given as another name.

Growing status

The status is No longer grown, for the reason Banned: Jaideo Sahay says the district authorities forbade the practice on getting information of it, and the Commission reads the evidence as cultivation "suppressed by authority". Radha Kishun gives a second account, that the cultivation was fostered by the Nepal Government and ended when "those men" were removed from the province; the article gives both.

Years grown

The infobox gives no years. No source prints a year for the start or the end of the cultivation. Radha Kishun's "ten or twelve years" before his evidence of 1893–94 would put the end about 1881–84, but that is a reckoning, not a printed year, so last grown is left blank.

How the border is drawn

• The border is Barabanki district in OpenStreetMap (administrative relation 1959692), simplified: about 3,800 km² in one part. The sources place the cultivation at Lodhaisur in tahsil Fatehpur and at a place called Mahadeva, both in the district, but give no extent, so the whole district is the proxy.
• The map point (26.94, 81.33) is a central point of the border; the border is not drawn from it.

Where were Lodhaisur and Mahadeva?

Not established. The Commission ties the name to "a place in Barabanki" but does not name it further, and no source read for this page says whether Lodhaisur and the place called Mahadeva are the same. Today's Barabanki district administration names Mahadeva as a place of pilgrimage of the Kanwariyas, and English Wikipedia ("Mahadeva, Barabanki") places a village of that name on the Ghaghra in Ramnagar tahsil, with the Lodheshwar Mahadev temple. No source read for this page connects Lodhaisur or the Mahadeva ganja to that village, so the article does not.

Other uses of the name

• Kampta Pershad, a deputy collector who had served in Kheri and Bahraich (witness 53), lists mahadeva as one of four kinds of ganja, "chiefly produced in Tahsil Negassan, Kheri district, and Balrampur, Gonda district, as well as in Bahraich district".
• The Raja of Nanpara (witness 181) gives mahadewa as a local name for wild ganja in Bahraich.
• Thakur Balbhaddar Singh of Kheri (witness 214): a ganja plant "taken care of, is called mahadeva".
• Rughober Dyal Misra (witness 48): "the name given to ganja grown in the Tarai of Ghogra".
• Mahomed Hassein, a Lucknow drug contractor (witness 253): round ganja "also known by the name of Mahadeva", growing wild near the Ghogra and between Nawabganj and Bahraich.
• Stoker had heard of an inferior ganja called Mahadewa imported from Nepal (vol. III, para. 26, p. 30); the Commission thought him probably mistaken.

The page follows the Commission's reading; these uses are recorded here.

Source conflicts

• Bundles. Thakur Parshad (251) describes the ganja "in large bundles"; Hakim Muhammad Ali (175) describes bundles "weighing one chitak each". The article gives both.
• Was it over? Sheikh Hifazat Hosain of Kanauj (witness 235) says that hemp is grown "for production of ganja in Bara Banki, Nawabganj", and J. Cockburn (witness 4) that pathar ganja is produced in the Haidargarh tahsil of Barabanki. Neither is a Barabanki witness, and both of the district's own witnesses (61, 249) say the cultivation ended; the status follows them.

Accessions

No accession on the wiki lies inside the border (checked 20 October 2026). The ZOM-IND-UTT lots from Lucknow lie about 15 km to the west.

Sources

• Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894. Vol. I para. 108, vol. III paras. 15–17 and 26, and the vol. V witnesses cited, all read on the page images. The OCR misreads several names: witness 247 is Radha Kishun, witness 249 is Kundan Lall, and the page reads "the Kabariyas alone were able to perceive this distinction".
• District administration. The Barabanki "About District" page, read on 20 October 2026.