Talk:Tantric cannabis use in India

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Page scope

Tantric cannabis use in India covers the ritual use of cannabis, consecrated as vijayā, in Hindu and Buddhist Tantric practice in India: the plant's names in the Sanskrit texts, the alchemical and Tantric literature, the consecrated substance, Bengali Śākta practice and the scholarship of the 1970s.

Data verification

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Discussion

Kind of evidence

The evidence for Tantric cannabis use is textual. The lead image shows a sādhu smoking a clay chilam; ascetic cannabis use is far more widely documented than the formal Tantric rite that the article covers.

Preparation

The statement that the Tantric texts give no recipes for the drink, on the assumption that adepts know how to make it, has no source attached and is not in the article. The article's account of the vijayākalpa chapter of the Ānandakanda lists preparations from powders and pills through confections to smoking in a chilam.

Current practice

No survey later than Aldrich (1977) of how far the full rite is still performed has been located.