The History of Cannabis in The Indian Subcontinent

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Bhang

The use by Sufis of cannabis as an aid to spiritual ecstasy has a long history, notwithstanding the Prophet's caveat that every intoxicant is the equivalent of wine, and thereby prohibited to Muslims. On the Indian subcontinent, bhang, an elixir of cannabis, is enjoyed by Hindus and Muslims alike on feast-days and on the urs of saints. It is known in legend as the Cup of Haydar. The following recipe is borrowed from Peter Lamborn Wilson's book Scandal.

"The traditional version of this recipe comes from a saki-khaneh in Quetta, Baluchistan, Pakistan. This technique requires three people and much patience.

"Take about a half a pound of cannabis, either the shade-leaves from cultivated hashish-plants, or if using very weak quality include the buds as well. Strip away the branches but do not separate the leaves and seeds.

"Heat the leaves and seeds on a dry griddle over a low-medium flame till the leaves are crisp and an oily smell begins to arise.

"Now wash the greenery in cold water a few times, gently but thoroughly, and squeeze it gently. I was told that the omission of this step causes headaches, but have no empirical proof of that assertion.

"Now take a fired clay pot, capacity at least several gallons. The bottom-inside must be rounded, not flat — and it must have been scored before firing with a crisscross pattern of slightly raised edges or welts.

"Place the wet cannabis in the bottom of the pot. At least one person has to hold the pot steady while one other person wields a pestle, a piece of wood about two and a half feet long which can be easily grasped, and with a blunt club-like end. Rotate and grind the bhang with the pestle, using both hands. Get up a good steady stirring rhythm, like paddling in a canoe race. Chant some appropriate folksong. Keep it up for at least two hours.

"The following are favorite flavor-additions, to be crushed with the bhang according to taste: almonds, pistachios, cardamoms, peppercorns (white and black), cinnamon stick and any sort of edible seed such as white or black poppy, sunflower, etc.

"When the bhang is thoroughly creamed to a superfine paste, scrape it from the pot and put it in a cotton cloth or folded cheesecloth. Hold the edges of the cloth over a pail or bucket (this needs two people) and begin to pour a slow trickle of cold water overt the bhang while gently kneading the lump of paste with your fingers. Keep kneading and pouring till the water which dribbles into the bucket is not longer green-tinted. Discard the remaining paste and drink the bucket of liquid — about twenty to forty servings.

"In Benares bhang is prepared on a flat rubbing-stone mortar and pestle and sold in small pellets. The poor swallow these pills with water, but the well-to-do dissolve them in milk or lassi with flavored syrups (rose, almond, khas) or sugar and spices.

"In the modern technique the hours of grinding and singing may be eliminated by the use of a Cuisinart, Osterizer or other high-speed blender, for about a half an hour. Use Domestic Backlot, or the shade-leaves from sinsemilla, since anything else would be expensive and wasteful — and too powerful."

-Peter Lamborn Wilson

[Xeric]

Well i have 'tasted' bhang! Say thanx to the village i belong

But, i know that it is both bad and prohibited so it happened as a one time 'measure' only!

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In Hindu culture

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The Marijuana, cannabis, or hemp plant is one of the oldest psychoactive plants known to humanity. Cannabis has become one of the most widespread and diversified of plants. It grows as weed and cultivated plant all over the world in a variety of climates and soils. Cannabis preparations have been used as remedies for thousands of years and the active ingredients of the hemp plant can be put to use in a multitude of medical conditions.

Marijuana has been used throughout history in many different cultures to change mood, perception, and consciousness - in other words, to get high. Its effects range from increasing creativity to provoking mystical experiences, to heightening the capacity to feel, sense and share. After alcohol, it is the most popular of what are called "recreational drugs."

6000 B.C. Cannabis seeds used for food in China

4000 B.C. Textiles made of hemp are used in China. Remains have been found of hemp fibers from this period and from Turkestan a century later. 1

2727 B.C. First recorded use of cannabis as medicine in Chinese pharmacopoeia. In every part of the world humankind has used cannabis for a wide variety of health problems. 2

1500 B.C. Cannabis cultivated in China for food and fiber

1500 B.C. Scythians cultivate cannabis and use it to weave fine hemp cloth. (Sumach 1975)

1200 - 800 BCE Bhang (dried cannabis leaves, seeds and stems) is mentioned in the Hindu sacred text Atharva veda (Science of Charms) as "Sacred Grass", one of the five sacred plants of India. It is used by medicinally and ritually as an offering to Shiva. 3

700 - 600 BCE The Zoroastrian Zend-Avesta, an ancient Persian religious text of several hundred volumes, and said to have been written by Zarathustra (Zoroaster), refers to bhang as Zoroaster's "good narcotic" (Vendidad or The Law Against Demons)

700 - 300 BCE Scythian tribes leave Cannabis seeds as offerings in royal tombs.

500 B.C. Scythian couple die and are buried with two small tents covering censers. Attached to one tent stick was a decorated leather pouch containing wild Cannabis seeds. This closely matches the stories told by Herodotus. The gravesite, discovered in the late 1940s, was in Pazryk, northwest of the Tien Shan Mountains in modern-day Khazakstan.

500 B.C. Hemp is introduced into Northern Europe by the Scythians. An urn containing leaves and seeds of the Cannabis plant, unearthed near Berlin, is dated to about this time.

500 - 100 BCE Hemp spreads throughout northern Europe.

430 B.C. Herodotus reports on both ritual and recreation use of Cannabis by the Scythians (Herodotus The Histories 430 B.C. trans. G. Rawlinson).

100 - 0 BCE The psychotropic properties of Cannabis are mentioned in the newly compiled herbal Pen Ts'ao Ching which is attributed to an emperor c. 2700 B.C.

0 - 100 A.D. Construction of Samartian gold and glass paste stash box for storing hashish, coriander, or salt, buried in Siberian tomb.

70 Dioscorides mentions the use of Cannabis as a Roman medicament.

170 Galen (Roman) alludes to the psychoactivity of Cannabis seed confections.

500 - 600 The Jewish Talmud mentions the euphoriant properties of Cannabis. (Abel 1980)

900 - 1000 Scholars debate the pros and cons of eating hashish. Use spreads throughout Arabia.

1090 - 1256 In Khorasan, Persia, Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, the Old Man of the Mountain, recruits followers to commit assassinations...legends develop around their supposed use of hashish. These legends are some of the earliest written tales of the discovery of the inebriating powers of Cannabis and the supposed use of Hashish. 1256 Alamut falls
Early 12th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.

12th Century Cannabis is introduced in Egypt during the reign of the Ayyubid dynasty on the occasion of the flooding of Egypt by mystic devotees coming from Syria. (M.K. Hussein 1957 - Soueif 1972)

1155 - 1221 Persian legend of the Sufi master Sheik Haidar's of Khorasan's personal discovery of Cannabis and it's subsequent spread to Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria. Another of the ealiest written narratives of the use of Cannabis as an inebriant.

13th Century The oldest monograph on hashish, Zahr al-'arish fi tahrim al-hashish, was written. It has since been lost.

13th Century Ibn al-Baytar of Spain provides a description of psychaoctive Cannabis.

13th Century Arab traders bring Cannabis to the Mozambique coast of Africa.

1231 Hashish introduced to Iraq in the reign of Caliph Mustansir (Rosenthal 1971)

1271 - 1295 Journeys of Marco Polo in which he gives second-hand reports of the story of Hasan ibn al-Sabbah and his "assassins" using hashish. First time reports of Cannabis have been brought to the attention of Europe.

1378 Ottoman Emir Soudoun Scheikhouni issues one of the first edicts against the eating of hashish.

1526 Babur Nama, first emperor and founder of Mughal Empire learned of hashish in Afghanistan.

1549 Angolan slaves brought cannabis with them to the sugar plantations of northeastern Brazil. They were permitted to plant their cannabis between rows of cane, and to smoke it between harvests. 3

mid 16th Century The epic poem, Benk u Bode, by the poet Mohammed Ebn Soleiman Foruli of Baghdad, deals allegorically with a dialectical battle between wine and hashish.

17th Century Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of occupied Constantinople

1606-1632 French and British cultivate Cannabis for hemp at their colonies in Port Royal (1606), Virginia (1611), and Plymouth (1632). 3

Late 17th Century Hashish becomes a major trade item between Central Asia and South Asia.

1798 Napoleon discovers that much of the Egyptian lower class habitually uses hashish (Kimmens 1977). He declares a total prohibition. Soldiers returning to France bring the tradition with them.

19th Century Hashish production expands from Russian Turkestan into Yarkand in Chinese Turkestan.

1809 Antoine Sylvestre de Sacy, a leading Arabist, reveals the etymology of the words "assassin" and "hashishin"

1840 In America, medicinal preparations with a Cannabis base are available. Hashish available in Persian pharmacies.

1840s Heydey of the Club des Hachichins in Paris. 3

1843 Le Club des Hachichins, or Hashish Eater's Club, established in Paris.
after 1850 Hashish appears in Greece.

1856 British tax ganja and charas trade in India

1870 - 1880 First reports of hashish smoking on Greek mainland
c. 1875 Cultivation for hashish introduced to Greece

1877 Kerr reports on Indian ganja and charas trade.

1890 Greek Department of Interior prohibits importance, cultivation and use of hashish.

1890 Hashish made illegal in Turkey

1893 - 1894 The India Hemp Drugs Commission Report is issued.

1893 - 1894 70,000 to 80,000 kg of hashish legally imported into India from Central Asia each year.

1906 Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, regulating the labelling of products containing Alcohol, Opiates, Cocaine, and Cannabis, among others. The law went into effect Jan 1, 1907 4 [Details]

Early 20th Century Hashish smoking very popular throughout the Middle East.

1915 - 1927 Cannabis begins to be prohibited for nonmedical use in the U.S., especially in SW states...California (1915), Texas (1919), Louisiana (1924), and New York (1927).

1920 Metaxus dictators in Greece crack down on hashish smoking.

1920s Hashish smuggled into Egypt from Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Central Asia

1926 Lebanese hashish production peaks after World War I until prohibited in 1926.

1928 Recrational use of Cannabis is banned in Britain.

1920s - 1930s High-quality hashish produced in Turkey near Greek border.

1930 Yarkand region of Chinese Turkestan exports 91,471 kg of hashish legally into the Northwest Frontier and Punjab regions of India

1930s Legal taxed imports of hashish continue into India from Central Asia.

1934 - 1935 Chinese government moves to end all Cannabis cultivation in Yarkand and charas traffic from Yarkand. Both licit and illicit hashish production become illegal in Chinese Turkestan.

1936 Propaganda film "Reefer Madness" made to scare American youth away from using Cannabis.

1937 Cannabis made federally illegal in the U.S. with the passage of the Marihuana Tax Act.

1938 Supply of hashish from chinese Turkestan nearly ceases.

1940s Greek hashish smoking tradition fades.

1941 Indian government considers cultivation in Kashmir to fill void of hashish from Chinese Turkestan.

1941 - 1942 Hand-rubbed charas from Nepal is choicest hashish in India during World War II.

1945 Legal hashish consumption continues in India

1945 - 1955 Hashish use in Greece flourishes again

1950s Hashish still smuggled into India from Chinese Central Asia

1950s Moroccan government tacitly allows kif cultivation in Rif Mountains.

1962 First hashish made in Morocco.

1963 Turkish police seize 2.5 tons of hashish

1965 First reports of C. afghanica use for hashish production in northern Afghanistan

1965 Mustafa comes to Ketama in Morocco to make hashish from local kif.

1966 The Moroccan government attempts to purge kif growers from Rif Mountains.

1967 "Smash", the first hashish oil appears. Red Lebanese reaches California.

Late 1960s - Early 1970s The Brotherhood popularizes Afghani hashish.

1970 - 1973 Huge fields of Cannabis cultivated for hashish production in Afghanistan. Last years that truly great afghani hashish is available

1972 The Nixon-appointed Shafer Commission urged use of cannabis be re-legalized, but their recommendation was ignored. Medical research continues. 2

Early 1970s Lebanese red and blonde hashish of very high-quality exported. The highest quality Turkish hashish from Gaziantep near Syria appears in western Europe.

Early 1970s Afghani hashish varieties introduced to North America for sinsemilla production. Westerners bring metal sieve cloths to Afghanistan. Law enforcement efforts against hashish begin in Afghanistan

1973 Nepal bans the Cannabis shops and charas (hand-rolled hash) export.

1973 Afghan government makes hashish production and sales illegal. Afghani harvest is pitifully small.

1975 FDA establishes Compassionate Use program for medical marijuana.

1976 - 1977 Quality of Lebanese hashish reaches zenith.

1978 Westerners make sieved hashish in Nepal from wild Cannabis.

Late 1970s Increasing manufacture of "modern" Afghani hashish. Cannabis varieties from Afghanistan imported into Kashmir for sieved hashish production.

1980s Morocco becomes one of, if not the largest, hashish producing and exporting nations.

1980s "Border" hashish produced in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border to avoid Soviet-Afghan war.

Early 1980s Quality of Lebanese hashish declines.

1983 - 1984 Small amounts of the last high-quality Turkish hashish appear.

1985 Hashish still produced by Muslims of Kashgar and Yarkland (NW China).

1986 Most private stashes of pre-war Afghani hashish in Amsterdam, Goa, and America are nearly finished.

May 13, 1986 Dronabinol is placed into Schedule II by the DEA. 5

1987 Moroccan government cracks down upon Cannabis cultivation in lower eleations of Rif Mountains.

1988 DEA administrative law Judge Francis Young finds after thorough hearings that marijuana has clearly established medical use and should be reclassified as a prescriptive drug. His recommendation is ignored.

1993 Cannabis eradication efforts resume in Morocco.

1994 Heavy fighting between rival Muslim clans continues to upset hashish trade in Afghanistan

1994 Border hashish still produced in Pakistan.

1995 Introduction of hashish-making equipment and appearance of locally produced hashish in Amsterdam coffee shops.

Oct 23, 2001 Britain's Home Secretary, David Blunkett, proposes relaxing the classification of cannabis from a class B to class C. As of June 10, 2002, this has not taken effect. [More Info]

June 2003 Canada is first country in the world to offer medical marijuana to its patients.

Source : Erowid and concept420

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In Muslim culture :

Islam has generally condemned the use of marijuana ; the religion regards the use of any intoxicants as haraam, or forbidden. Sufism (the mystical offshoot of Islam) takes a somewhat different view. This religion believes in knowing God through ecstatic states of mind, and widespread history of marijuana use has been recorded in Sufi culture over the centuries. Indeed, in one Persian folk tale, the founder of Sufism, a monk called Haydar, was the first Persian to discover marijuana . Out walking in the midst of a depressed mood, he came across the marijuana plant and ate several of its leaves. Finding his mood immediately and dramatically improved, he returned to the monastery and recommended that his brother monks should try it too!

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History of Marijuana in India

Marijuana was probably first used as an intoxicant in India around 1000 B.C., and soon became an integral part of Hindu culture (Snyder, 1970: 125).

In China, where the marijuana plant had been used to make cloth and certain medicines for centuries, it was not recorded as an intoxicant. Explanations are unclear as to why marijuana was used as an intoxicant in India but not in China.

Marijuana was also used as an intoxicant in other parts of the world prior to 500 A.D. but was not as well documented as the use of opium.

The drug "nepenthe" in Homer's Odyssey is believed by a number of scholars to have been a brew in which the most active ingredient was hemp (Brotteaux, 1967: 10).

Galen wrote in the second century that it was customary to promote hilarity and happiness at banquets by giving the guests hemp (Reininger, 1967: 14-15).

Cannabis is used in three different preparations in India (Snyder, 1970: 27). The first is called Bhang, comparable in potency to marijuana in the United States.

It is made from the leaves and stems of uncultivated plants and blended into a pleasant tasting liquid concoction.

The second is Ganja, more potent than Bhang, made from the tops of cultivated plants.

The third and most potent preparation, charas, is similar to hashish or "hash" and is obtained by scraping the resin from the leaves of the cultivated plants. Hard blocks are pressed from this material which are converted for smoking.

High-caste Hindus are not permitted to use alcohol. But they are allowed Bhang at religious ceremonials, and also employ it as an intoxicant at marriage ceremonies and family festivals.

Bhang is used by laborers in India in much the same way as beer is used in the United States (Barber, 1970: 80).

The lower classes of India use either a few pulls at a Ganja pipe or sip a glass of Bhang at the end of the day to relieve fatigue (Grinspoon, 1971: 173), to obtain a sense of well-being, to stimulate appetite, and to enable them to bear more cheerfully the "strain and monotony of . . . daily routines" (Geller and Boas, 1969: 5).

These types of users and objectives are frequently the reverse of those in the United States where marijuana users consider themselves an exclusive and advanced "in-group" (Andrews and Vinkenoog, 1967: iii). A major intoxicant use in India is for religious purposes.

Asia And The Middle East

Cannabis spread from India to other parts of Asia, to the Middle East and then to Africa and South America, although some believe it may have originated independently in the latter two continents (Fort, 1969: 15).

Cultural values may have played a part in determining its use. Opium and cannabis were equally available in pre-Communist China; but cannabis had no vogue as an intoxicant (Barber, 1970: 80). The Chinese spoke of the plant as the "Liberator of Sin."

In India, it was called. the "Giver of Life" (Fort, 1970: 15). One author proposed that temperament may have also played a role in this determination, suggesting that perhaps the placid, practical Chinese did not appreciate the euphoria produced by cannabis (Snyder, 1070: 125).

Additional evidence of mid-Asian use comes from cuneiform tablet interpretations that ascribe use in Persia circa 700-600 B.C. and of the time of Ashurbanipal's Assyrian reign, 669-626 B.C. (Blum. and Associates, 1969, 1: 62).

The drug's popularity as an intoxicant spread to the Middle East and thoroughly permeated Islamic culture within a few centuries (Geller and Boas, 1969: 5).

Because alcohol was prohibited to the followers of Mohammed, cannabis was accepted as a substitute.

The Myth Of The Assassins

Two Muslim myths, one from the 10th century A.D. and the other from the 13th century A.D., have been the sources of some of the contemporary attitudes about the drug.

The first myth deals with hashish as a magical eastern drug brought by the Arabs into Spain in the 10th century.

These invaders confined its use primarily to themselves, taking it back to Africa when they left Spain. Although it did not become a European habit, some beliefs about the drug were left behind.

The existence of this "magical eastern drug" was probably known to Marco Polo, the Venetian traveler of the 13th century A.D. before he left on his journey to the East.

Marco Polo returned to Europe with his own tale of cannabis which, in the potent form of hashish, was said to be used as an intoxicant by Hasan-I-Sabbah to send his ruthless followers on missions of murder.

The word "assassin" was said to be derived from the word "hashish," or from Hasan (Geller and Boas, 1969: 6). Marco Polo had written about how this "Old Man of the Mountain" sent his men out on their missions with all the color and pageantry that Europeans associated with the East. As Marco Polo described:

... In the territory of the Assassins there were delicious walled gardens in which one can find everything that can satisfy the needs of the body and the caprices of the most exacting sensuality.

Great banks of gorgeous flowers and bushes covered with fruit stand amongst crystal rivers of living water.... Trellises of roses and fragrant vines cover with their foliage pavilions of jade and porcelain furnished with Persian carpets and Grecian embroideries.

Delicious drinks in vessels of gold or crystal are served by young boys or girls, whose dark unfathomable eyes cause them to resemble the Houris, divinities of that Paradise which the Prophet promised to believers.

The sound of harps mingles with the cooing of doves, the murmur of soft voices blends with the sighing of the reeds. All is joy, pleasure, voluptuousness and enchantment.

The Grand Master of the Assassins, whenever he discovers a young man resolute enough to belong to his murderous legions . . . invites the youth to his table and intoxicates him with the plant "hashish." Having been secretly transported to the pleasure gardens the young man imagines that he has entered the Paradise of Mahomet.

The girls, lovely as Houris, contribute to the illusion. After he has enjoyed to satiety all the joys promised by the-Prophet to his elect, he falls back to the presence of the Grand Master. Here he is informed that he can enjoy perpetually the delights he has just tasted If he will take part in the war of the Infidel as commanded by the Prophet(Geller and Boas, 1969: 6).

Another translation (Kitti, 1967: 24) begins the tale this way:

Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his ASHISHIN.

In reality, this was a religious situation and scholars have long since exposed Marco Polo's tale as being a myth, at best an imaginative embellishment of tales he had heard.

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Marijuana has a tradition in Hinduism that maintains the gods sent man the Hemp plant so that he might attain delight, courage, and have heightened sexual desires. When nectar or Amrita dropped down from heaven, Cannabis sprouted from it. Another story tells how, when the gods, helped by demons, churned the milk ocean to obtain Amrita, one of the resulting nectars was Cannabis. It was consecrated to Shiva and was Indra's favorite drink. After churning of the ocean, demons attempted to gain control of Amirita, but the gods were able to prevent this seizure, giving Cannabis the name Vijaya ("victory") to commemorate their success. Ever since, this plant of the gods has been held in India to bestow supernatural powers on its users.

The Indian Vedas sang of Cannabis as one of the divine nectars, able to give man anything from good health and long life to visions of the gods. The Zend-Avesta of 600 B.C. mentions an intoxicating resin, and the Assyrians used Cannabis as an incense as early as the ninth century B.C. Taoist priests wrote in the fifth century B.C. that Cannabis was employed by "necromancers, in combination with Ginseng, to set forward time and reveal future events."

The Tibetans in the Himalayas use Cannabis preparations that have great importance because of their hallucinogenic qualities, used in a religious context. Bhang is a mild preparation; dried leaves or flowering tops of cultivated plants are pounded with spices into a paste and consumed as candy, known as maajun. The Tibetans consider Cannabissacred. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition maintains that during the six steps of ascetism leading to enlightenment, Buddha lived on one Hemp seed a day. He is often depicted with"Soma leaves" in his begging bowl and the mysterious god-narcotic Soma has occasionally been identified with Hemp.

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Christianity

“Jesus was a stoner” may sound like the slogan on a counterculture t-shirt, but it may have a grain of truth to it. Some historians believe that oil derived from marijuana seeds was a central ingredient in Jewish and Christian holy anointing oils. Some of the healing miracles of Jesus have even been attributed to the marijuana in the anointing oils – the drug can take effect through skin absorption, and marijuana can relieve the effects of glaucoma, skin ailments and menstrual pains.

In addition to this, Rastafarians and some modern Gnostic Christians believe that the Tree of Life referred to in one Biblical passage ("the leaves of the Tree of Life [that] are for the healing of the nations”) refers to the marijuana plant.

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Buddhism

Like in most religions, marijuana use is controversial and divisive in Buddhism. The tenets of Buddhism advise against intoxicants, but in many sects of Chinese Buddhism, marijuana has been used in initiation and mystical rituals since the 5th century BC. Some Tibetan Buddhist priests believe it to be the most holy of plants, and there are many written records that suggest that the founder of Buddhism, Gautama Siddhartha, lived primarily on marijuana seeds and leaves in the years before his enlightenment.