History of Religious Ideas, Volume 2

Éliade, Mircéa; Trask, Willard R.

doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226027357.001.0001

Cited by 28 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…The ritual use of fire during funerals continued in Xinjiang and eastern Central Asia with the Zoroastrian practices of the Sogdians, and many Sogdian tombs in western China have evidence of burning (37). Some scholars have suggested that cannabis formed part of Zoroastrian religious and mortuary practices during the first millennium CE (38)(39)(40), possibly illustrating a long-term continuity in certain cultural practices. In the volume entitled Vendidad of the Zend-Avesta, Bangha (Bhang of Zoroaster), cannabis is referred to as a "good narcotic" (7,41).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs

Ren

Tang

et al. 2019

Sci. Adv.

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Cannabis is one of the oldest cultivated plants in East Asia, grown for grain and fiber as well as for recreational, medical, and ritual purposes. It is one of the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world today, but little is known about its early psychoactive use or when plants under cultivation evolved the phenotypical trait of increased specialized compound production. The archaeological evidence for ritualized consumption of cannabis is limited and contentious. Here, we present some of the earliest directly dated and scientifically verified evidence for ritual cannabis smoking. This phytochemical analysis indicates that cannabis plants were burned in wooden braziers during mortuary ceremonies at the Jirzankal Cemetery (ca. 500 BCE) in the eastern Pamirs region. This suggests cannabis was smoked as part of ritual and/or religious activities in western China by at least 2500 years ago and that the cannabis plants produced high levels of psychoactive compounds.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of cannabis smoking: Chemical residue evidence from the first millennium BCE in the Pamirs

Ren

Tang

et al. 2019

Sci. Adv.

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“…n many respects, religious organizations are among the oldest communal structures known to human kind, rivaling in their antiquity tribal and clan structures that antedate history. 1 Not surprisingly, the range of organizational structures is as diverse as the range of religions themselves. Indeed, issues of organizational structure are often very significant matters of religious beliefs.…”

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confidence: 99%