Ayurveda
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Ayurveda (Sanskrit āyurveda, "the science of health or medicine") is the classical medical tradition of South Asia, whose first Sanskrit compendia date from the centuries around the beginning of the Common Era.[1][2]: 218 Its pharmacology classes cannabis, under the names bhaṅgā and vijayā, among the semi-poisonous plants (upaviṣa), which may be used as medicine only after purification.[3]: 236–237, 247
In G. Jan Meulenbeld's analysis of the Sanskrit medical texts the drug is absent from the early compendia and entered the materia medica after their time. The first reference that he and Dominik Wujastyk accept as certain is in a Bengali work of the 11th or 12th century. From the 14th century cannabis is common in the medical literature.[4]: 60[5]: 56–57, 60 Cannabis leaf is an official drug of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India under the name vijayā. In India the leaf and seed fall outside the legal definition of ganja. In Sri Lanka the Ayurveda Act of 1961 lets Ayurvedic physicians obtain cannabis for their medicines.[6][7][8]: 112
Texts and their dates
The Indologist Kenneth G. Zysk divides the history of Indian medicine into three phases. A Vedic phase of about 1200–800 BCE was dominated by magical healing. A classical phase opened with the compendia of Caraka and Suśruta, which organised medical knowledge around a theory of three humours (doṣa). It ran from a few centuries before to several centuries after the beginning of the Common Era. A syncretic phase, from the 11th century, shows the influence of Unani medicine and other traditions. Its representative works are the Śārṅgadhara Saṃhitā of the 14th century and Bhāvamiśra's Bhāvaprakāśa of the 16th.[2]: 218 The Carakasaṃhitā, the Suśrutasaṃhitā and the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya are known together as the bṛhattrayī. During Zysk's fieldwork in 1997 practitioners named them as their principal sources but seldom consulted them, since most had little or no Sanskrit.[2]: 223 Beside the compendia stand the medical lexicons (nighaṇṭu) and the alchemical literature of rasaśāstra, which deals with the processing of minerals and metals into medicines.[5]: 58[3]: 246
For Meulenbeld bhaṅgā was a substance "added to the materia medica after the age of the classical saṃhitās of Caraka, Suśruta and Vāgbhaṭa". He used its first appearances to date the works that name the drug.[4]: 60 The earliest reference that Meulenbeld and Wujastyk accept as certain is in the Cikitsāsārasaṃgraha of Vaṅgasena, a Bengali medical author whom Wujastyk dates to about 1050–1100. In a chapter on appetisers and digestives he groups bhaṅgā with opium among the drugs that pervade the whole body before they are digested. He also prescribes cannabis under two other names in recipes for long life. The Dhanvantarīyanighaṇṭu, a lexicon of the 11th century, is the earliest work Wujastyk identified that lists the drug's effects in detail. The Śārṅgadhara Saṃhitā includes a few recipes with cannabis. From that work onwards the drug is common in the medical literature.[5]: 56–60
Wujastyk found that modern books presenting ancient India as a society at ease with cannabis quote one another and a few articles by writers who did not read Sanskrit. In his account reliable references to the plant begin about 1000 CE.[5]: 55 On Meulenbeld's re-examination the Atharvaveda passages read as "hemp" can each be explained in other ways. The earliest occurrences of the word are also the masculine bhaṅga, whereas the name of the plant is always feminine.[5]: 56 Some Ayurvedic writers continue to place cannabis in the Vedic period: Anagha Ranade and her co-authors (2022) link bhaṅgā with soma and with the five plants of the Atharvaveda verse, while noting that the Vedic saṃhitās make no direct reference to it.[3]: 236–237 Zysk counts the claim that Ayurveda began some 5,000 years ago among the marks of what he calls New Age Ayurveda, the Ayurveda carried to Europe, Australia and North America. In his estimate a codified medical system probably began around the sixth century BCE, with its earliest evidence in the Buddhist Pāli texts.[2]: 218, 224–225
How a drug is classed
Ayurvedic pharmacology (dravyaguṇa) describes a medicinal substance by five attributes: its taste (rasa), qualities (guṇa), potency (vīrya), the taste it takes on after digestion (vipāka) and its specific action (prabhāva).[3]: 237 In the official monograph of the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, cannabis leaf is bitter in taste, light and sharp, hot in potency and pungent after digestion. Its actions include appetiser (dīpana), digestive (pācana), binding (grāhī), sleep-inducing and aphrodisiac. Its uses are weak digestion, insomnia, diarrhoea, impotence and the malabsorption disorder grahaṇī.[6] The 11th-century Dhanvantarīyanighaṇṭu already called the drug light and sharp. In its account the drug removes the phlegmatic humour (kapha), aids digestion and raises the bilious humour (pitta); it causes delusion and slows speech.[5]: 59
Monier-Williams lists eight branches of the classical science, among them the doctrine of antidotes (agada-tantra), the doctrine of elixirs (rasāyana-tantra) and the doctrine of aphrodisiacs (vājīkaraṇa-tantra).[1] Cannabis belongs to the toxicology of the first, which groups the semi-poisonous plants as the upaviṣa varga.[3]: 236 A survey of 26 medical compendia and 41 alchemical texts found 193 formulations with bhaṅgā for internal use, 102 of them with it as a major ingredient. Aphrodisiacs (33) and remedies for grahaṇī (28) are the most numerous, followed by rejuvenation (rasāyana), diarrhoea and fever.[3]: 238
Purification, dose and diet
The texts require that bhaṅgā be purified (śodhana) before it is used as medicine. The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia repeats the requirement in its monograph.[3]: 247[6] The methods include washing the leaf in water until the water runs clear and treating it with cow's milk or ghee.[9]: 368–369[10]: 73 An open-label trial published in 2019 gave cannabis purified by washing in water, as a powder, to cancer patients with chronic pain.[11]
The classical doses are stated in old weights, among them the guñjā or ratti of about 125 mg and the māṣa of about 1 g. The smallest dose, 125 mg, is prescribed for alchemical preparations. For some formulations the texts set no fixed amount and leave the dose to an assessment of the patient's digestive power (agni).[3]: 239–246 The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia gives 125–250 mg of the powdered leaf.[6] Rejuvenating formulations are taken early in the morning on an empty stomach and aphrodisiacs at night. A course lasts from seven days for a decoction to a year for a modaka.[3]: 246
Some formulations come with rules of diet and conduct. One is to be taken on a diet mainly of milk and another with rice and ghee. During the 40 days of one course the patient abstains from sexual intercourse; with another, salt, curd and sour food are forbidden.[3]: 248 For the ill effects of the drug the Rasendrasambhava gives cow's curd with dry ginger (śuṇṭhī) or lemon juice. The Anupānamañjarī gives cow's milk with dry ginger.[3]: 249 The Ānandakanda, an alchemical work of the 12th or 13th century, describes nine successive stages of poisoning by cannabis.[5]: 61–63 In Zysk's reading the classical texts never claim that their remedies are always safe. They warn of the harm that follows wrong formulation, preparation or prescription. When a treatment fails they hold the physician to blame.[2]: 227
Preparations
Ranade and her co-authors count 22 dosage forms for cannabis in the classical texts. Powders (cūrṇa) are the most frequent, followed by the herbo-mineral preparations of alchemy, modaka (a dose larger than a tablet, usually over 10 g), tablets (vaṭī) and confections (avaleha). The liquid forms include medicated oil and ghee, fermented preparations (āsava, ariṣṭa), distillates and decoctions.[3]: 240, 242, 245 The leaves and the seeds are the parts used in almost all of them.[3]: 240 The Ānandakanda lists powders, confections, pills, electuaries and decoctions made with cannabis beside sherbet, sweets, majoun and betel. It also describes smoking cannabis in a chilam.[5]: 63
Cannabis also serves as a processing medium. Juice pressed from its leaves is used to impregnate other drugs (bhāvanā) in 154 formulations and to boil them (svedana) in three, most of them alchemical preparations of metals.[3]: 246[12]: 136 The Ayurvedic Formulary of India includes the powder jātīphalādya cūrṇa from the Śārṅgadhara Saṃhitā and jīrakādi modaka from the Bhaiṣajyaratnāvalī.[9]: 39, 109 The important formulations of the leaf in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia are jātīphalādi cūrṇa and madanānanda modaka.[6]
Standards and law in India
In Zysk's account Ayurveda in India was taught in the late 1990s mainly in government Ayurveda colleges with a standard curriculum. The older training of a pupil beside a practising physician (vaidya) had become rare.[2]: 220 The Ayurvedic Formulary of India, Part I, first published in 1978, was the first official document on Ayurvedic medicines. It was added to the First Schedule of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, to give it legal status. Its second edition of 2003 holds 444 formulations.[9]: Foreword Under the same Act the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India is the book of standards for the single drugs it covers.[6] In 2014 the government department responsible for Ayurveda and the related systems became the Ministry of AYUSH.[13]
The Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, list "Bhanga (Except seeds)" among the poisonous substances of the Ayurvedic system, with gañjā entered separately for Siddha medicine and bhāṅg and charas for Unani.[14] The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 defines ganja as the flowering or fruiting tops of the plant, "excluding the seeds and leaves when not accompanied by the tops".[7] Under the government's National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, bhang, a preparation of the leaves, falls outside the Act and is licensed by the states. The policy states that medicinal use of cannabis in India has been "confined to alternate medicine such as homeopathy and ayurveda".[15]
Sri Lanka
The Ayurveda Act No. 31 of 1961, amended in 1962, entitles Ayurvedic physicians in Sri Lanka to obtain opium and cannabis for the manufacture of their medicines. In the mid-2000s they used powdered cannabis processed from seized stocks and sold to them by the Ayurvedic Drugs Corporation. Draft legislation then under discussion would have let the Commissioner of Ayurveda grow the plant at one central site.[8]: 112 Figures from the corporation put the cannabis used in Ayurvedic medicines in 2018 at 252 kg, mainly for madana modaka and kāmeśvarī modaka.[16]: 43 The Sri Lankan pharmacopoeia of 1961 gives Kameshwari modakaya, a confection of 22 plant drugs with cannabis seed and leaf fried in ghee.[17]: 81–83 Sri Lankan preparations of cannabis include decoctions, pills, pastes, powders and fumigations.[16]: 44
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Monier-Williams, M. (1899). A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (new, greatly enlarged and improved ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 148, s.v. āyur-veda – via Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Zysk, Kenneth G. (2002). "Classical Ayurveda and its modern practice: study and fieldwork of Ayurveda in India and in America". In Salema, A. (ed.). Ayurveda at the Crossroads of Care and Cure. Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar. pp. 218–228. ISBN 972-98672-5-9.
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 Ranade, A.; Tavhare, S.D.; Acharya, R.; Pawar, S.D. (2022). "Cannabis (Bhanga) in classical text of Ayurveda: an evidence-based rationale". Cannabis/Marijuana for Healthcare. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 235–251. doi:10.1007/978-981-16-8822-5_12. ISBN 978-981-16-8821-8.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Meulenbeld, G.J. (1989). "The search for clues to the chronology of Sanskrit medical texts, as illustrated by the history of bhaṅgā (Cannabis sativa Linn.)". Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik. 15. Reinbek: Dr. Inge Wezler, Verlag für Orientalistische Fachpublikationen: 59–70. ISSN 0341-4191.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Wujastyk, Dominik (2002). "Cannabis in Traditional Indian Herbal Medicine". In Salema, A. (ed.). Ayurveda at the Crossroads of Care and Cure. Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar. pp. 45–73. ISBN 972-98672-5-9.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India, Part I, Volume I (e-book). New Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Department of AYUSH. monograph 78, Vijayā (leaf).
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985(Act No. 61 of 1985), 1985, section 2(iii).India.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 UNODC Regional Office for South Asia (September 2005). Sri Lanka (PDF) (Report). South Asia Regional Profile. New Delhi: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. pp. 102–112.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia Committee (2003). The Ayurvedic Formulary of India, Part I (2nd revised English ed.). Delhi: Controller of Publications, for the Department of Indian Systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. ISBN 8190115146 – via Wellcome Collection.
- ↑ Tavhare, S.D.; Acharya, R. (2017). "Exploring the pharmaco-clinical view on Bhanga (Cannabis sativa Linn.): a classical unfamiliar portrayal". International Journal of Pharmaceutical & Biological Archives. 8 (6): 59–78.
- ↑ Tavhare, S.D.; Acharya, R.; Reddy, R.G.; Dhiman, K.S. (2019). "Management of chronic pain with Jalaprakshalana (water-wash) Shodhita (processed) Bhanga (Cannabis sativa L.) in cancer patients with deprived quality of life: an open-label single arm clinical trial". Ayu. 40 (1): 34–43. doi:10.4103/ayu.AYU_43_19. PMID 31831967.
- ↑ Tavhare, S.D.; Acharya, R. (2016). "Bhanga as an activity potentiater in Ayurvedic classics and Indian alchemy (Rasashastra): a critical review". International Journal of Ayurvedic Medicine. 7 (3). doi:10.47552/ijam.v7i3.829.
- ↑ Kareem, P.K. Abdul. "AYUSH". Arthapedia. Indian Economic Service. Retrieved 2026-11-13.
- ↑ The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 (PDF). Government of India, Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation. Schedule E(1), see rule 161(2), as substituted by G.S.R. 683(E) of 19 August 2010. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
- ↑ Government of India, Department of Revenue. National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PDF) (Report). paragraphs 20–21. Retrieved 2026-08-11.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Kalpani, K. L. M.; Arunakumara, K. K. I. U.; Fernando, K. M. C.; Walpola, B. C. (2022). "Prospects of cannabis and its cultivation in Sri Lanka". Sri Lankan Journal of Agriculture and Ecosystems. 4 (1): 29–56. doi:10.4038/sljae.v4i1.67.
- ↑ Sandakelum, H.M.D.S.; Nallaperuma, D.M.; Herapathdeniya, S.K.M.K. (2025). "Standardization and quality control of Sanjeewanie Kameshwari Rasayanaya" (PDF). Journal of Postgraduate Institute of Indigenous Medicine. 1 (1): 80–96.