Talk:Cannabis in Hinduism
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The page covers cannabis in Hindu worship, festivals and ascetic life in India and Nepal: Shiva and the offerings made to him, the festival calendar, other deities, ascetics, householders, the texts, the soma question, the colonial accounts and the law since independence. The preparations themselves are covered on Bhang, Ganja and Charas; the Sanskrit name on Vijaya; the Vedic verses on Atharvaveda; the consecrated Tantric rite on Tantric cannabis use in India; medicine on Cannabis in Ayurveda; and Bengali devotional use, including Trinath, on Cannabis in Bengali Religion.
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Record source conflicts, dating problems and unresolved readings here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Sources
- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, vol. I, ch. IX (paras. 431–450, pp. 159–166) is the main witness for practice in the 1890s. Its page references follow the running heads of the Wellcome copy (archive.org b32222920_0001).
- J. M. Campbell, "Note on the religion of hemp" (vol. III, pp. 250–252) and G. A. Grierson's note on Sanskrit and Hindi literature (vol. III, pp. 246–249) are the commission's appendices on belief and texts.
- Hasan (1975) and Fisher (1975), chapters of Cannabis and Culture, are village and temple ethnography from north India (1959–60) and Kathmandu (early 1970s).
- Acharya et al. (2014) is a survey of 200 sadhus at Pashupatinath during Shivaratri in February 2014, written from a public-health standpoint; its judgements on festival use are the authors'.
- Sarbacker (2026) is a study of psychoactive substances in the history of yoga; it reports points from Morningstar (1985) and Sauthoff.
- Meulenbeld (1989) and Wujastyk (2002) are the philological studies behind the dating of the textual references.
- The Nepal law section uses the 1973 licence revocation (Fisher), the 1976 Act (Acharya et al.) and two Kathmandu newspaper reports of official announcements, from 2018 and 2019.
How old the association with Shiva is
- The texts that join Shiva and cannabis cited here date from about the 12th century (the Ānandakanda, as summarised by Wujastyk and by Sarbacker) and about 1400 (Vidyāpati's hymn, in Grierson's account).
- O'Flaherty (1968) called the Durga celebration, the use of bhang and the tradition that Shiva uses bhang "late characteristics of Bengal Śaivism". Hasan (1975) wrote that it "is not clearly known why Hindus associate hemp drugs with Shiva".
- Campbell's myths were collected in western India in the 1890s. He names no text for most of them.
The Rājavallabha verse
- Grierson translated the epithet in the churning verse as "the delight of the king of the gods"; Wujastyk translated the same verse with "a favourite of the god Śiva".
- Wujastyk found the lexicon only in an 18th-century revision by Nārāyaṇadāsa Kavirāja, and the churning half of the verse not in the editions he used: he knew it from Grierson and from Dutt (1877), who cite it.
The date of the Dhūrtasamāgama
- Grierson put the farce at about 1500. Wujastyk records Keith's date near the reign of Narasiṃha of Vijayanagara (1487–1507) and Winternitz's 1324.
Passages cited from Purāṇas and Tantras
- Campbell cites the Shiva Purana, a "Meru Tantra" and the Kashikhanda; the commission quotes the Rudrayamala and the Bhavishya Purana from a Baroda report. Neither gives an edition or verse number.
Social custom or religious duty
- The commission's witnesses were evenly divided on whether bhang at Holi and on Bijoya Dashami was social custom or religious observance, and the commission did not settle it.
Soma
- Mukherjee (1921) proposed that soma was cannabis. O'Flaherty (1968) dismissed the argument; Houben (2003) lists it among the proposed identifications. Sarbacker (2026) calls the botanical identification of soma unclear.
Colonial framing
- Campbell's note and the commission's chapter describe Hindu belief in the terms of revenue officials of the 1890s. Their characterisations are quoted and attributed to them.