This article considers the nature of one particular drink made from sugar cane called sīdhu (usually m., also śīdhu), exploring the evidence from textual sources. Other drinks were made with sugar cane products, such as āsavas, medicinal ariṣṭas, and the drink called maireya, but I will not consider those here. As I argue, sīdhu was the basic fermented sugar cane drink, not strongly characterized by additives—“plain” sugar-wine as it were. Though in a manner typical of premodern Indic alcohol culture, even this one drink was a complex and variable affair. Rather than consider this drink in medical sources alone—important as that evidence may be—my methodology here is to examine the history of this drink in the light of a wide range of textual evidence, placing this drink in the broad context of pre-modern South Asian drinking culture.
...More
Book
James (James Andrew) McHugh;
(2021)
An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions
(/isis/citation/CBB169064274/)
Article
Singh, Nand Lal;
Ramprasad, ;
Mishra, P. K.;
Shukla, S. K.;
Kumar, Jitendra;
Singh, Ramvijay;
(2010)
Alcoholic Fermentation Techniques in Early Indian Tradition
(/isis/citation/CBB001024272/)
Chapter
Yifang Fang;
Xiaoyuan Jiang;
(2021)
Liquor Making and Folk Customs in Ancient China
(/isis/citation/CBB690573498/)
Book
Shail, Andrew;
Howie, Gillian;
(2005)
Menstruation: A Cultural History
(/isis/citation/CBB000930580/)
Thesis
Jaboulet-Vercherre, Azelina;
(2011)
Wine, the Physician, and the Drinker: Late Medieval Medical Views on Wine's Uses, Pleasures, and Problems
(/isis/citation/CBB001567319/)
Article
Mandal, Pratibha;
(2013)
A Glimpse of the Garo Tangible Medicine: The Ruga--Garo Picture
(/isis/citation/CBB001451524/)
Article
Stefan Pohl-Valero;
(2020)
The Scientific Lives of Chicha: The Production of a Fermented Beverage and the Making of Expert Knowledge in Bogotá, 1889–1939
(/isis/citation/CBB873860975/)
Article
Gerard Sasges;
(2021)
Mold’s Dominion: Science, Empire, and Capitalism in a Globalizing World
(/isis/citation/CBB369638636/)
Book
Zofia Rzeźnicka;
Maciej Kokoszko;
(2021)
Milk and Dairy Products in the Medicine and Culinary Art of Antiquity and Early Byzantium (1st–7th Centuries AD)
(/isis/citation/CBB843150469/)
Book
Foxcroft, Louise;
(2012)
Calories and Corsets: A History of Dieting over 2000 Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001200874/)
Book
Federico Edoardo Perozziello;
(2022)
Storia e filosofia della medicina. La costruzione del pensiero medico tra logica e innovazione
(/isis/citation/CBB402747313/)
Book
Maria Malatesta;
(2015)
Doctors and Patients: History, Representation, Communication from Antiquity to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB901720961/)
Book
Baker, Patricia Anne;
Nijdam, Han;
Land, Karine van 't;
(2012)
Medicine and Space: Body, Surroundings and Borders in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
(/isis/citation/CBB001200811/)
Book
Salvatore Califano;
(2015)
Storia dell'alchimia: misticismo ed esoterismo all'origine della chimica moderna
(/isis/citation/CBB559415425/)
Article
Kenneth Zysk;
(2019)
Varāhamihira’s Physiognomic Omens in the Garuḍapurāṇa
(/isis/citation/CBB437815074/)
Article
Mazars, G.;
(1999-2000)
Veterinary Medicine in Ancient and Medieval India
(/isis/citation/CBB000742025/)
Book
Priesner, Claus;
(2011)
Geschichte der Alchemie
(/isis/citation/CBB001220781/)
Article
Kochhar, Rajesh;
(2010)
Rāhu and Ketu in Mythological and Astronomological Contexts
(/isis/citation/CBB001024277/)
Article
Mohammadifar, Shamameh;
(2011)
The Origin, History and Trade Route of Cinnamon
(/isis/citation/CBB001510325/)
Book
Steele, John M.;
(2010)
Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World
(/isis/citation/CBB001250487/)
Be the first to comment!