Tantric cannabis use in India

Tantric cannabis use in India refers to the ceremonial role of cannabis, particularly in the form of a beverage called vijaya, within the rituals of Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism. The tradition arose in approximately the seventh century AD from a convergence of Shaivite Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism, reaching its peak in medieval Bengal and the Himalayan kingdoms. Three strands of earlier Vedic tradition, the magical use of bhang, the mythology of divine poison-drinking, and the practice of drug yoga, were woven together in Tantric ritual into a systematic methodology for achieving liberation (mahanirvana).

Vedic antecedents

Bhang in the Atharva Veda

The earliest references to cannabis in Indian religious texts appear in the Atharva Veda, composed in the second millennium BC. Verse 11.6.15 names bhang alongside Soma as one of five sacred plants used "for freedom from distress," while verse 8.8.3 prescribes the burning of hemp boughs during a magical rite intended to overcome enemies and evil forces. While Soma served as the primary Vedic sacrament, cannabis occupied a distinct role as the plant of the Atharvan magicians and shamans. Its earliest documented uses in India were both medical and religious, consistent with shamanistic traditions across ancient Asia.

As Vedic culture developed, bhang became established in folk medicine. Hindu physicians first prescribed it as an antiphlegmatic agent, and Buddhist monks used it to treat rheumatism. From this period onward, cannabis appears regularly in both medical and religious texts, where it became particularly associated with Shiva.

The Churning of the Milk Ocean

The mythology surrounding cannabis as a sacred substance is most fully expressed in the story of the Churning of the Milk Ocean (Samudra Manthana), one of the central drug myths of ancient India. According to this narrative, the gods had lost amrita (the nectar of immortality) and enlisted the aid of demons to recover it through a cosmic churning. The process produced various beings and substances, including the goddess of fortune (Shri) and the goddess of wine (Surya). A terrible poison also emerged, threatening the universe, which Shiva caught in his throat, earning him the epithet Nilakantha ("Blue-throated"). The churning continued until Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods, emerged with a bowl of amrita. The demons attempted to seize it, but the gods prevailed and carried the nectar back to heaven.

Shaivites cite this legend to explain Shiva's blue neck as a symbol of the divine act of poison-drinking that saved the universe. The Tantric tradition specifically identifies the amrita produced by the churning as the cannabis beverage used in their ceremonies, called vijaya (meaning "victory") because it gave the gods their triumph. This interpretation links the new sacred intoxicants that replaced Vedic Soma with the Tantric practice of employing dangerous or forbidden substances in the pursuit of liberation.

Soma substitution

The connection between Soma and cannabis in Indian religious history reflects a practical crisis. During the late Vedic period, as the Aryans moved deeper into the Indo-Gangetic plains, they were separated from their supply of Soma, which grew only in the mountains. Substitutes had to be found, and many plants were tested, some so potent that they were classified as visha (poison). A late hymn of the Rig Veda (10.136) depicts an unorthodox sage sharing a cup of such "poison" with Rudra, the Vedic forerunner of Shiva.

The landmark study by Wasson and O'Flaherty (1971) argued that the original Soma was probably Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric mushroom. If this identification is correct, it suggests that the religious traditions from which Tantrism emerged may have had psychoactive plant use as a foundational element, and that the later adoption of cannabis represented a continuation rather than an innovation.

Drug yoga

The use of plants to achieve altered states of consciousness has an established place within the classical Indian yoga tradition. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali state that siddhis (magical or occult powers) may be obtained by birth, by herbal drugs (oshadhi), by incantation of mantras, by austerities, and by concentration. Similarly, an ancient Buddhist text enumerates five kinds of powers (riddhi), including those attained by use of herbs (oshadhikrita).

In Bengal, where Tantric yoga reached its height, cannabis itself came to be called siddhi, a pun on "occult powers." Shiva, as the great consumer of bhang, is simultaneously the Lord of Asceticism, making him the master of drug yoga in the Hindu Tantric tradition. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition further holds that the Gautama Buddha subsisted on one hemp seed per day during the six years of asceticism that preceded his enlightenment. In Vajrayana Buddhist iconography, the Buddha is sometimes depicted with serrated "Soma leaves" in his begging bowl, linking his asceticism with cannabis in Tantric belief.

Hemp fibre itself is regarded as sacred in Tibet, and Tibetan monastic histories are often written on hemp paper due to its durability.

The Tantric synthesis

Texts and doctrine

Tantric cannabis use arose in approximately the seventh century AD through a convergence of Shaivite Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist practices. The most important Hindu Tantric text available in English, the Mahanirvana Tantra, was composed around the eleventh century AD. Its title is Buddhist in origin (mahanirvana meaning "the greatest liberation"), but the text takes the form of a dialogue between the Hindu god Shiva and his shakti (female power), Kali.

The Tantrics refer to their texts as the "Fifth Veda" after the Atharva Veda and consider them the appropriate scriptures for the present age. The word tantra itself means "that which is woven together," reflecting the synthesis of earlier traditions into a unified practice.

Left-handed and right-handed practice

Tantric practice is categorized as either "left-handed" (literal, material) or "right-handed" (metaphorical, symbolic). Left-handed practice involves the actual use of five elements known as the panchamakara or "five M's," each beginning with the letter M in Sanskrit: liquor (madya), fish (matsya), meat (mamsa), parched grain (mudra), and sexual intercourse (maithuna). In right-handed practice, substitutes are employed, such as milk instead of wine.

The choice of path is determined jointly by the practitioner and their guru, based on the practitioner's level of preparation. An inexperienced or unprepared practitioner is considered pashu ("animal-like"), while a vira ("hero") is fit for literal left-handed practice, and a divya ("god-like") adept is one whose entire life constitutes their spiritual practice.

Both Hindus and Buddhists may become students of Tantric practice once initiated by a Tantric guru. Unlike conventional Hinduism, caste rules are set aside in Tantric practice. Women practitioners (sadhakis) are welcome and may be required in advanced ceremonies.

Vijaya in ritual

Preparation

The cannabis beverage vijaya is prepared in advance of the ceremony. The Tantric texts do not give recipes, assuming that adepts already know the preparation method. In its simplest form it is a small round ball of moistened bhang in milk or water; more commonly, at least in contemporary India, it is a milkshake flavoured with almonds, pepper, cardamom, poppy seeds, and other spices.

The consecration ritual

The Mahanirvana Tantra provides the most complete surviving description of the cannabis consecration ritual. The ceremony begins just before dawn. The practitioner (sadhaka) awakens and immediately meditates on his guru in the thousand-petalled lotus (sahasrara chakra) at the top of his head. He then performs an extended sequence of purifications: ritual bathing with chanting and meditation, early morning prayers invoking sacred rivers as channels within his own body, and libations to the Sun.

After these preparations, the practitioner proceeds to the place of worship, which may be a temple, a private house, or even a graveyard. He draws a protective diagram, worships the gods of the entrance beginning with Ganesha as the Remover of Obstacles, and enters the space left foot forward while meditating on the Goddess.

The practitioner then places a bowl of vijaya on an equilateral triangle drawn on the ground as a protective mandala. To purify and consecrate the cannabis to his chosen deity (in this case Kali), he recites the vijaya consecration mantra and performs a series of specified hand gestures (mudras) over the bowl: the cow-mudra, yoni-mudra, calling-in mudra, fixing-mudra, hypostasizing-mudra, obstructing-mudra, and confronting-mudra. These gestures are understood to bring the power of the Goddess into the cannabis.

The practitioner then raises the bowl to his forehead three times, offers it to the Devi in his heart, and chants a mantra to Sarasvati, the goddess of speech. He then drinks the vijaya. By doing so, he draws the energy of Kundalini, the goddess in the form of a coiled serpent at the base of his body, upward to the tip of his tongue to receive the offering. The act of drinking is understood as a sacrifice of the particular offering back into the cosmic source from which it came.

The role of cannabis in the ceremony

Bharati (1970) was the first scholar to observe the significance of the timing within the ritual: approximately an hour and a half elapses between the drinking of vijaya in the first half of the ceremony and its climax in the second half, corresponding to the time required for orally consumed cannabis to reach full effect.

During this interval, the practitioner performs Bhuta-shuddhi, a mental cleansing of the bodily elements through guided Kundalini yoga, progressively dissolving each energy centre (chakra) into the next higher one. Aldrich (1977) argues that this ritual corresponds to the practitioner's growing awareness of the onset of the cannabis effect, and that the bhang facilitates the meditation while the meditation simultaneously structures the experience.

The practitioner then performs Nyasa, placing fingertips and palm on various parts of his body to infuse it with divine energy, while pronouncing the So'ham mantra ("I am He"), signifying the beginning of felt unity with the divine.

At high oral doses, cannabis produces time and space distortion, heightened suggestibility, and, in some cases, visual hallucinations. Within the carefully controlled setting of the Tantric ritual, these effects are directed: specific deities are visualised during prescribed portions of the ceremony. The set and setting of incense, flowers, temple lamps, and the intent focus of the participants create optimal conditions for the ritual's purpose.

Aldrich argues that cannabis serves two distinct functions in the ceremony. First, it acts as a disinhibitor, helping the practitioner overcome the cultural taboos that left-handed Tantric practice deliberately transgresses. Second, and more importantly, it functions as a "sense-heightener, a euphoric booster of awareness" that is essential to the specific character of the ritual. The ceremony could be performed without it, but would then constitute a different ritual entirely, "like performing a peyote ceremony without the cactus."

The second half: panchamakara and maithuna

Following the cannabis consecration and the practitioner's transformation through Bhuta-shuddhi and Nyasa, the ceremony proceeds to its "superior" portion. Male and female practitioners form a chakra (circle), each woman seated to the left of her male partner. The five M's are consecrated and consumed one by one, with power invoked into each through ceremonies similar to the vijaya consecration.

The final element is maithuna (ritual intercourse). The male practitioner views his partner as Gauri (the spouse of Shiva) and himself as Shiva. During the act, he recites mantras and meditates continuously on the unity of Shiva and Shakti. Texts differ on whether the male should ejaculate: Buddhist Tantric instructions call for retention, while some Hindu texts prescribe ejaculation. In either case, the purpose is to prolong the act and build sexual energy until, according to the tradition, both partners experience a transcendence of the sense of self, which constitutes the experience of liberation.

Sex yoga and cannabis

The connection between cannabis and sexuality in Tantric practice has roots in Hindu folk medicine, where cannabis has long been regarded as an aphrodisiac. Shiva embodies both asceticism and eroticism, a paradox extensively discussed in the scholarly literature. In Tantric doctrine this paradox is resolved through the unity in practice (sadhana) of yoga with bhoga (sensual pleasure). The Kularnava Tantra states that in Shaivite Tantric (Kaula) doctrine, bhoga becomes yoga directly, and worldly involvement (samsara) becomes release (moksha).

Hindu and Buddhist differences

While both Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism employ cannabis and the five M's, they differ in their understanding of the roles of male and female energy. In Hindu Tantrism, the female energy (shakti) is dynamic and paramount; the male is passive and draws all vitality from the shakti. In Shaivite iconography, Shiva is depicted as shava (a corpse) who can be brought to life only through unity with the Goddess. In Buddhist Tantra the relationship is reversed: the male assumes the active role of compassion while the female represents the passive embodiment of wisdom. In both traditions, however, the purpose of the ritual is to unite worldly involvement with the extinction of worldly desires, achieving liberation through the unity of the phenomenal and the absolute.

Contemporary practice

Aldrich reported in 1977 that several poets and writers in Calcutta told him in 1965-1966 that they were involved in Tantric rituals, though he noted they may have been deceiving him. Professor Agehananda Bharati informed Aldrich that, at the time, no one performed the traditional Tantric ceremonies in full: "they only write and talk about it." The extent to which full Tantric cannabis ceremonies continue to be practiced in the present day remains uncertain.

Cannabis continues to occupy a prominent place in Shaivite devotional practice outside the Tantric context. Bhang is poured over Shiva's stone phallus (the lingam) and is consecrated to Kali in temples across India. The annual festival of Maha Shivaratri and the festival of Holi both involve widespread consumption of bhang preparations, particularly in northern India and the Western Himalayas.

Terminology

Several Sanskrit terms for cannabis carry specifically religious connotations:

• Vijaya ("victory"): The cannabis beverage used in Tantric ceremonies, identified in the tradition with the amrita produced by the Churning of the Milk Ocean. The name commemorates the gods' victory over the demons in securing the nectar.
• Siddhi ("occult powers"): A name for cannabis used particularly in Bengal, punning on the yogic concept of supernatural attainments.
• Bhang: The most common Hindi term for cannabis preparations, traceable to the Atharva Veda. In Tantric usage it refers specifically to the plant material before its ritual consecration as vijaya.
• Amrita ("nectar of immortality"): The Vedic term for the divine nectar, applied in Tantric tradition to the cannabis preparation as a replacement for Soma.

See also

• Western Himalayas
• Cannabis in Khmer culture