Research:2024-01-01/Book chapter/cannabis-in-traditional-indian-alchemy

1 Jan 2024 Book chapter

India

Cannabis in Traditional Indian Alchemy

Patricia Sauthoff

In Maas & Cerulli (eds.), Suhṛdayasaṃhitā: A Compendium of Studies on South Asian Culture, Philosophy and Religion. Dedicated to Dominik Wujastyk (Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis 28). Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, pp. 165–179.· 2024

A philological and historical study of cannabis in the 12th–13th-century Sanskrit rasaśāstra text Ānandakanda, whose chapter 15 (186 verses) is the most extensive premodern Indian monograph on the plant. Updates Wujastyk (2002) with attention to the seven cannabis-mantras of the Ānandakanda, the fifteen Sanskrit synonyms (including the earliest secure attestation of gañjā), the male–female plant distinction, alchemical recipes, signs of intoxication, and the rarity of cannabis as an ingredient elsewhere in the rasaśāstra corpus. Closes with the etymological history of "marijuana" and other modern-language terms.

Source DOI PDF

2024-01-01 2026-05-27 Cannabis in Traditional Indian Alchemy Book chapter Patricia Sauthoff In Maas & Cerulli (eds.), Suhṛdayasaṃhitā: A Compendium of Studies on South Asian Culture, Philosophy and Religion. Dedicated to Dominik Wujastyk (Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis 28). Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, pp. 165–179. 2024 10.11588/hasp.1386.c20158 https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/catalog/book/1386 https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1386.c20158 A philological and historical study of cannabis in the 12th–13th-century Sanskrit rasaśāstra text Ānandakanda, whose chapter 15 (186 verses) is the most extensive premodern Indian monograph on the plant. Updates Wujastyk (2002) with attention to the seven cannabis-mantras of the Ānandakanda, the fifteen Sanskrit synonyms (including the earliest secure attestation of gañjā), the male–female plant distinction, alchemical recipes, signs of intoxication, and the rarity of cannabis as an ingredient elsewhere in the rasaśāstra corpus. Closes with the etymological history of "marijuana" and other modern-language terms. India