________________
260
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1894.
THE HEMP PLANT IN SANSKRIT AND HINDI flower, as one of his examples. The fact that LITERATURE.
the pollen of this special flower was quoted is A search through all the Sanskrit and Hindi
worth noting. books accessible to me, has resulted in the follow.
Varahamihira (A. D. 504), in his Brihat. ing notes on the references to the hemp plant
sanhitd (XLVIII. 39), mentions vijayá as used occurring in the literatures of those languages.
with other grasses, in the rites of the Pushya The hemp plant is met with in Sanskrit and
bathing festival. Vijayd in this passage certainly Hindt literature under various names. The
means some plant or other. The word may mean principal are -(1) Bhanga. (2) Indrasana. either the Indian hemp plant, or be a synonym (3) Vijaya or Jaya. The earliest mention of the
of harftakt (the yellow myrobolan) Dr. Hoernle word ganja, which I have noted, is dated about informs me that in the oldest medical works the the year 1300 A. D.
word is explained by commentators in the latter . Whenever the word vijayd is used, it is doubt. sense. It is doubtful, however, what meaning ful whether the hemp plant is meant or the yellow we are to adopt, and the word may mean the myrobolan, as the word means both. The name hemp-plant bhanga. In the passage from the hhanga occurs in the Atharvadeda, say, B. C. 1400. Atharvavéda already quoted, amongst the five The hemp plant is there mentioned simply as a plants specially honoured as oblations, bhanga is sacred grass. Påņini who flourished, say, B.O. 300, closely connected with the herb saha. So also, mentions the pollen of the hemp flower (bhanga). in the Brihatsamhita, vijayd is mentioned as one In the commencement of the sixth century A. D. of a long list of plants to be used in the offer. we find the first mention of vijayd which I have ing, and the very next plant mentioned is sahi, noted. It is a sacred grass, and probably means, which is apparently the same as saha. This in this instance, the hemp plant. The first would encourge the theory that the vijayd of the mention of bhanga as a medicine, which I have Brihatsamhitd was more probably the same as noted, is in the work of Susruta, before the eighth the bhanga of the Atharvavéda century A. D., where it is called an antiphleg. In Busruta who flourished before the eighth matic. During the next four oenturies bhanga
century (Ut. XI. 3), bhanga is recommended (feminine) frequently ooours, in native Sanskrit
together with a number of other drugs as an dictionaries, in the sense of hemp plant. In the
antiphlegmatic. Vijayd is mentioned in the tenth century the intoxioating nature of bhang
same work as a remedy for catarrh accompanied seems to have been known: and the name Indre
by diarrhea (Ut. XXIV. 20) and (Ut. 39, p. 415, sana, Indra's food, first appears, so far as I
20) as an ingredient in a presoription for fever know, in literature. Its intoxicating power was
arising from an excess of bile and phlegm. In certainly known in the beginning of the fourteenth
these two passages, however, vijayd is probably century. In a play written in the beginning of
an equivalent of harftakt, the yellow myrobolan, the sixteenth century it is mentioned as being
and does not mean hemp. consumed by jogts (Saiva mendioante). It is there named "Indra's food." In later medical works
In the various koshas or diotionaries, bhangd it is frequently mentioned under various names.
is frequently mentioned as meaning the hemp Below will be found a more detailed account of
plant. Thus,-(1) Amarakósha,1 2,9,20; (2) Trikan. the passages, in which I have noted the use of
datésha, 3, 864 ; (3) Hêmachandra's Anekdrthathe Indian hemp. I may add that I have not kosha, 2, 37; (4) Hêmachandra's Abhidhanachintraced in literature any difference between the
támani, 1179. The Sarasundari (date not known uses of the word gañjd and of the word bhanga, to me), a commentary on the Amarak sha though modern kavirdjas tell me that they are mentioned above, by Mathur&sa, and quoted in distinct plants.
the Sabdakalpadruma, mentions that the seed In the Atharvavéda (cir. 1400 B. C.) the
of the bhangd plant is the size of that of millet
(kaldya). bhang plant is mentioned (11, 6, 15) once :-"We tell of the five kingdoms of herbs headed by Sôma; | Chakrapanidatta is said to have flourished may it, and kuda grass, and bhanga and barley, under Nayapala, a prince who reigned in the and the herb saha, release us from anxiety." elerenth century A. D. In his Sabdachandrika, Here reference is evidently made to the offering a medical vocabulary, he gives the following of these herbs in oblations.
Sanskrit names for bhang :-(1) Vijaya (victori. The grammarian Panini (cir. B. C. 800) men. ons), (2) Trailokyavijaya (victorious in the three tions (5, 2, 29) bhangdkata, the pollen of the hemp worlds, (3) Bhanga, (4) Indrabana (Indra's food), 1 Cir. A. D. 500. Tenth or eleventh oentury.
* Twelfth century.
