Talk:Atharvaveda
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The page treats the Atharvaveda as a cannabis source: the three verses whose plant names have been translated "hemp", what the word bhaṅga means, and how the claim that the text is the earliest Indian mention of cannabis was made and contested.
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Sources
- Whitney, Atharva-Veda Saṃhitā (1905), revised and edited by Lanman: vol. 7, p. 42 (II.4.5, śaṇa); vol. 8, pp. 502–504 (VIII.8.3, with Lanman's account of the army rites of the Kauśika Sūtra and Dārila's gloss of tājadbhaṅga as castor-oil plant) and pp. 640–642 (XI.6.15). A proofread transcription of both volumes is on Wikisource.
- Grierson, note in the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission's report, vol. III (1894), pp. 246–249. It dates the Atharvaveda "say, B.C. 1400" and cites only XI.6.15.
- Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, vol. II (1912): p. 93 (Bhaṅga) and p. 350 (Śaṇa).
- Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (1899), p. 744, s.v. bhaṅga.
- Witzel, "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools" (1997), pp. 275–276 (contents of the collection) and pp. 280–281 (date of books 1–12 of the Śaunaka text).
- I. C. and R. N. Chopra, Bulletin on Narcotics (1957), the chapters on religious use and on indigenous medicine.
- Aldrich, Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 9 (1977), p. 228.
- Meulenbeld, Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik 15 (1989), pp. 60–62 and 64.
- Wujastyk, in Ayurveda at the Crossroads of Care and Cure (2002), pp. 55–56.
Where the sources disagree
- Date. Grierson gives "say, B.C. 1400". The Chopras give "2000 to 1400 B.C.", "according to western scholars", without naming them. Witzel dates the older books, which hold all three verses, to about 1200 BCE from their mention of iron. The article gives Witzel's date in its own voice because it is the dating study; the other two are given as the claims of those authors.
- The pollen of bhaṅgā. Grierson gives bhaṅgākaṭa "the pollen of the hemp flower" to Pāṇini 5.2.29. Meulenbeld gives Pāṇini V.2.4 for the crop and the vārttika of Kātyāyana on V.2.29 for the pollen.
- Grierson's translation of XI.6.15 has kuśa grass where Whitney has darbha, and "release us from anxiety" where Whitney has "free us from distress".
- Grierson's wording. The printed note reads "the five plants special honoured as oblations". The article quotes "honoured as oblations" only.
Uncertain points
- Whether bhaṅga names cannabis in VIII.8.3 or XI.6.15 is not settled by the sources. Whitney translated it "hemp" in both. Meulenbeld gives a medieval commentator's different reading for each and calls the identification "a matter of dispute". Wujastyk holds that both can be explained otherwise.
- The Vedic Index allows either Cannabis sativa or Crotalaria juncea for śaṇa. Whitney's note takes the śaṇa of II.4.5 to be the string that binds the amulet, following the commentator.
- In VIII.8.3 the reading "hemp" depends on dividing tājádbhaṅga, which the padapāṭha and the Kauśika Sūtra keep as one word.