Stuart Walton on the sweet intoxication of ancient India.
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The honey of the bee, as well as the juice extracted from grapes, are called madhu,” states the Arthaśāstra, a 2,000-year-old compendium of statecraft and domestic economy written at the Mauryan court of India. This first piece of intelligence comes in a section offering advice to the superintendent of a royal storehouse (II: XV).
Further on in the text, in a recitation of the duties of a superintendent of liquor, whose job involved overseeing the disporting of merchants with their mistresses in “half-closed rooms,” the most prized intoxicating drinks are listed. They include various honeyed and spiced fermented potions made with jaggery (unrefined palm sugar), tree bark, or rice, long pepper and black pepper, cinnamon, turmeric, and the psychoactive betel nut, but the confusion for the wine historian sets in with reference to madhu.
While the text lays out basic recipes for various drinks with their specific ratios, it delineates madhu primarily through its appellations. The script claims, “Madhu is grape juice,” and mentions its names tied to regions of origin, namely Kāpiśāyana and Hārahūraka. In the scholarly book An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions (2021), author James McHugh specifies that Kapiśa, close to modern-day Begram in Afghanistan, corresponds to the first name, while the other’s location is less definitive. Importantly, madhu wasn’t mixed locally but imported from western regions like Persia, inheriting its heritage from a deep native tradition—link.
Nevertheless, it remains uncertain if every reference to madhu in ancient writings pertains exclusively to grape wine. McHugh, an associate professor at the University of Southern California, repeatedly acknowledges the term’s vague connotations in his research. The duality of madhu encompasses both honey and grape juice, occasionally referring to imported grape wine and other times to a honey-based fermented drink. Fundamentally, the term stems from the Proto-Indo-European root for “mead,” indicating its broad historical usage.
The intriguing ambiguity of madhu‘s definition is highlighted by its first documented usage in the Arthaśāstra as an term for grape wine within Indian texts, suggesting an initial association with mead. McHugh’s analysis dates the text’s compilation around the dawn of the Common Era, though portions could trace back to the third century BCE. The word madhu originates from the Sanskrit mada, which refers to intoxication from various sources such as gambling, power, or substances like betel, cannabis, the lethal datura, or wine.
Historically, both mead and wine were to be sweet in their earliest forms as per culture. European and Near East societies developed several techniques to enhance the sweetness of wine; these included harvesting grapes late for heightened natural sugars, drying them on or off the vine, and stopping fermentation by cooling amphorae until winter set in. Those wines that ended up less sweet had to be enhanced with honey, grape juice, or in ancient Roman times, with defrutum or sapa, which are thick syrups created from reduced grape must.
In Vedic texts, the term mada relates to the consumption of soma, a ceremonial drink thought to be made from the unfermented sap of an unidentified plant. This drink, potentially linked to the potent concoctions of the Eleusinian Mysteries, may have varied in psychoactivity, reminiscent of substances ranging from Indian rue to hallucinogenic mushrooms, or even less intense agents like tea. However, the effects described imply significant influence, fitting for a ritual beverage.
The soma was somewhat tart, typically blended with milk and water and less frequently with honey, thus not predominantly sweet. The Rigveda reflects on soma’s appeal to the divine, emphasizing its delightful and rich qualities: “Sweet to thy body let it be, delicious be the savory juice: / Sweet be the Soma to thine heart” (trans. Ralph T. H. Griffith, 1896, XVII: 6). Instead of literal sweetness, the intoxicating quality, which offers a soothing indulgence, defines the essence of beverages like mead or wine, aligning spiritual satisfaction with both humans and deities.
1 Quoted (and translated) in James McHugh, An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions (2021), New York: Oxford University Press, 53.