CANNABIS 



SATIVA 



History 



THE HEMP PLANT 



Magic Plant. 



Panini's 

 Definition. 



First Mention, 

 of Ganja. 



Bhanga 

 from Bhanj. 



Sana. 



Greek 



Cannabis. 



very possibly the oldest Indian MS. of a medical work extant. But in the 

 Pharmacographia Indica the following occurs, " It is mentioned along with the 

 Vedic plant janjida, which has magic and medicinal properties and which is 

 described in the Atharvaveda (ix., 34, 35) as a protector." " The gods are 

 said to have three times created the herb (oshadhi)." " The intoxicating proper- 

 ties which the plant possesses in its Eastern home appear not to have been 

 discovered until a more recent date, but in the fifth chapter of Manu, Brahmins 

 are prohibited from using it, and in the sacred books of the Parsis the use of 

 bana for the purpose of procuring abortion is forbidden." It may, however, 

 be pointed out that the authors of the Pharmacographia Indica would perhaps 

 have been more correct had they stated that the magic plant was called sana 

 not bhanga and was spoken of as springing from the saps of husbandry it 

 was therefore a cultivated plant and one possibly of moist soils. On the other 

 hand, Dr. Krishna Garde of Poona, in his evidence before the Hemp Drugs Com- 

 mission (vii., 173-9), stated in the most emphatic manner that in the ancient 

 classic literature of India there was " not the slightest reference, direct or implied, 

 to the narcotic properties of the plant." Panini, he continues, " refers to it as 

 cultivated in fields (evidently for its fibre and seed). Manu and Kaushitaki 

 Brahmana refer to it as a source of fibre. Later Sanskrit commentators and 

 lexicographers interpret bhang as shana, the Bengal sunn plant (Ci'otainrta 

 jnnce), which has been known in India from time immemorial as a plant-yielding 

 fibre." There are no Sanskrit names for ganja or charas ; all the words so used, 

 according to Dr. Parker, have been recently coined. In the " Sabha Parva " of the 

 Mahabharata, the Sakas (Scythians of Turkestan) are spoken of as bringing 

 presents of thread spun by worms and patta. In that reference apparently 

 the fibre of hemp may have been denoted, but it was not called sana but 

 patta. 



Grierson (hi his communication to the Hemp Drugs Commission) observes that 

 the first reference to ganja which he has noted is about 1300 A.D. He then adds 

 that according to an old Hindu play written in the beginning of the 16th century 

 Siva himself brought down the bhang plant from the Himalaya and gave it to 

 mankind. Jogis are well-known consumers of bhang and ganja, and they are 

 worshippers of Siva. In this connection also it may be explained that Grierson 

 has permitted me to re-submit to him personally the controversy regarding 

 the bhanga, ganja and sana of Sanskrit literature. While he diffidently 

 urges that comparative philology is out of his line, he points out that if it be 

 accepted that bhanga is an Aryan (not a Semitic word as Burton suggests), it is 

 derived from bhanj to break (transitive). In that sense it occurs not infre- 

 quently in names of plants other than Cnnnaitin, such as gdtra-bhanga (= body- 

 breaking), katu-bhanga (= pungent bhanga) ; so also in certain combinations such 

 as prishtha-bhanga ( = back-breaking a trick in wrestling). But if the deri- 

 vation from bhanj be correct, then the " breaking " might refer to the senses 

 and have the meaning of "to rout." The Indian bhanga and the Avesta banha 

 (the Persian bang) have a common origin and the " bh " form is the original. 

 The reverse is improbable if not impossible. The nearest certain common root 

 is the Sanskrit bhanj already mentioned (suggestive of a hypothetical bhranj, 

 and of frangere, brechen, break, etc.). [Cf. Hehn, Kulturpfl. und Haust., 471-2.] 

 The word bhanga has both a male and female form, a circumstance suggestive 

 of the botanical male and female plants, and if so that fact might be viewed as 

 removing it from sana (which usually denotes Crotninrla juneea). Commenting 

 on the word sana, Grierson says its origin is unknown to him but that the cerebral 

 " n " suggests a previous " rn." It can have nothing to do with indra-asana 

 (Indra's-food). Prain, on the other hand (Cult, and Use of Ganja, 1893, 43), regards 

 sana as the most interesting of the Sanskrit names for this plant. Prof. 

 Rapson writes me that it is quite possible the original form of the word was 

 Kavvap-is, hence the numerous Teutonic names like the English " hemp " and 

 the early English " henep." The Greek and Latin " k " often changes into 

 " h " and the " b " into " p " on passing into English. But if this be so, the 

 final " b " was dropped off in Sanskrit the sana may have been originally sanab. 

 The sound-changes involved are quite regular, namely the Sanskrit " s " (the 

 palatal sibilant) passing into the Greek and Latin " k " sound, and then into the 

 English " h." But O. Schrader (Reallexicon der indogerm. Altertum., 1901, 331) 

 observes that the bis or pis in the Grseco-Thracian Kavvafiis is suggestive of pis, 

 pus, the (Finnic) Siryenian and Votiak word for nettle, so that the original may 

 have been Ka.vva.-fiis and meant hemp-nettle. 



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