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The page covers sadhus, the Hindu renouncers, from the side of cannabis: the orders in outline and what is recorded of cannabis in each, how ganja, charas and bhang are smoked and drunk, the reasons given for the drug and the denials, ascetics as growers and receivers of the plant, early accounts, the evidence of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, fairs and pilgrimage, and the law. The general history, theology and organisation of the ascetic orders are outside its scope. Cannabis in Hindu worship as a whole is covered on Cannabis in Hinduism; the god on Shiva; the festival and the arrangements at Pashupatinath on Maha Shivaratri; the pipe on Chilam; the preparations on Bhang, Ganja and Charas.
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Discussion
Sources
- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). The report's paragraphs on ascetics (vol. I, chs. IV, V, VIII, X and XIV, and the notes of dissent by Raja Soshi Sikhareswar Roy and Lala Nihal Chand) and the evidence of seven witnesses in vols. IV–VI are cited by page. The witnesses' views of ascetics, and the Commission's, are their own and are quoted as theirs.
- Oman (1903) and Briggs (1938) wrote about Hindu ascetics in colonial and missionary settings. Oman's account of the orders is his description of northern India at the turn of the 20th century. Briggs's phrase "notorious as drug addicts" is his own judgement.
- Ward (1815), a missionary at Serampore, set his sentence on "perpetual intoxication" in a list of Hindu practices he condemned. His account of the two bairagis on Ganga-Sagar island in January 1806 is an eyewitness report. Oman cites the sentence as "Ward's Hindus, p. 283"; in the second edition of 1815 it is on p. 358 of vol. II.
- Chopra (1940) is a lecture by an officer of the Indian Medical Service, printed in the Indian Medical Gazette.
- Bhattacharya (2025) is a historian's study of the armed Dashanami ascetics of the 18th century. Her statement that ganja and charas went with ritual sexual practices rests on her own conversations with ascetics, which her article does not date or place.
- Sarbacker (2026) reports Patricia Morningstar's work of 1985 on the beliefs of some sadhus about cannabis and chastity.
- Acharya et al. (2014) surveyed 200 sadhus at Pashupatinath during Shivaratri in February 2014. The figure for sadhus who said that Shiva had said cannabis should be used is 13.5 per cent in the results; the discussion rounds it to 14 per cent.
- Iyer (2019) in Open magazine is a reporter's account of the Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj. Singh (2026) in LiveLaw is a legal commentary, and his statement that enforcement against ascetics at the Kumbh is rare is his assessment.
- The sadhu detained in Jaipur in March 2025 is a living person in a minor drug case and is not named.
The orders
- No figure for the number of akharas or of sadhus in India is given on the page. Counts published in recent years differ from one another.
- Oman divided the orders into worshippers of Shiva and of Vishnu and placed the Aghoris among the Shaiva sects. The Commission's witnesses use the words fakir, jogi, sannyasi, bairagi, gosain and "religious mendicant" loosely, and fakir often covers Muslim ascetics too. Where a witness's word is quoted, it is kept.
Pages of the evidence volumes
- Pages cited for the evidence volumes are the printed pages of the Wellcome Collection copy. The evidence of witness no. 171 (vol. IV) runs to p. 390, and that of witness no. 4 (vol. V) to p. 43.
- In the Internet Archive text of vol. V the Punjab witness J. R. Drummond is numbered 18; the printed page has 13.
Images
- The photograph of a bairagi grinding hemp leaves is Fig. 1, "A Bairagi and his hermitage", facing p. 42 of Oman's book; Oman's description of it is on p. 44.