Wine In Ancient India

‘This is Soma, who flows wine, who is strength giving…’ (Bose 1922): Those are hymns praising Soma from the Hindu sacred text Rig-Veda. During the Vedic period of ancient India, 2500 to 200 BC, primarily around the Indus Valley, wine was worshipped as a deity. It was believed to have medicinal properties. Another hymn from the Rig-Veda says, ‘The God Soma heals whatever is sick… makes the blind see and the lame walk.’

Sushruta, an Ayurvedic scholar and the most revered surgeon of ancient India, recommended a dose of Soma as an effective anaesthetic. The life sciences and medical text, Ayurveda, and a constituent part of it, called Charaka Samhita, elaborate the use of wine as a potent medicine. The Charaka Samhita states that wine is an antidote to sleeplessness, sorrow and fatigue, and produces hunger, happiness and digestion. According to Ayurveda, good digestion is a prerequisite for good health – a bad stomach can lead to a host of other ailments; a concept reinforced by modern medicine too. The Charaka Samhita adds that, if taken as a medicine (that is, in marginal quantities), it acts as Amrita (Soma). However, if taken indiscriminately, it leads to disease.

The Tantras, a part of the Hindu scriptures, refer to wine as the god beverage Soma. Wine was an indispensable part of Tantric worship, and with the rise of Buddhism (which used Tantric rituals), wine came into greater use in North and Northeastern India and Nepal. Surgeons in ancient India, such as Sushruta, were among the first to document the use of wine as an anaesthetic. The following quote from an ancient Sanskrit medical text testifies this: ‘the patient should be given to eat what he wishes and wine to drink before the operation, so that he may not faint and may not feel the knife’ ( Jolly 1951).

Although not at such a large scale as that in ancient times, Ayurvedic medicine is still practiced in India. In fact, wine (madya) is listed as one of the twelve ingredient groups for food and drinks in the text Fundamentals of Ayurvedic Medicine. The text quotes that, ‘Wine is the best for dispelling fatigue, and it is exhilarating.’ Thus wine was very much a part of ancient India.