Cups of life

The interviewee is an expert on alcohol in India this interviewer is a teetotaller He is in Los Angeles we are Mumbai juggling time difference In the middle of the night over a Zoom call we discuss the origin of the finest intoxicating drinks in ancient and medieval India Our heady conversation is a potent mix of beer palm toddy and wine and the processes in which grains sugars fruits and herbs have been used for centuries to make liquorA scholar of premodern South Asian texts history and religions with a focus on cultural history and material culture James McHugh is professor of South Asian religions at the University of Southern California His first book Sandalwood and Carrion written 10 years ago is a study of the sense of smell and the use of aromatics and perfumes in premodern Indian culture and religion His latest An Unholy Brew Alcohol in Indian History and Religion is the first comprehensive monograph on the history of alcohol and some drugs in premodern IndiaA toddy tapper on the outskirts of Hyderabad descends from a tree after collecting sap that he will brew into arrack McHugh says his research involved speaking to brewers and toddy tappers in India and China PicGetty ImagesSurprisingly not much was previously documented on the subject nor did McHugh know anything about alcohol in Indiamdashit was a perfectly large project to keep him going Seven years to be precise It entailed a detailed study of various texts in Sanskrit Pali and Prakit along with fieldwork in India and China meeting brewers toddy tappers Vedic scholars and tantric practitioners to understand the technology of ancient brewing as well as the theorisation of alcohol and intoxication in Hindu Buddhist and Jain legal texts In one chapter he mentions how Buddhist monks and nuns forbidden to take liquor were permitted sugary ldquomedicinesrdquo namely honey madhu and sugarcane syrup phnita along with oil ghee and butter during the hours when otherwise they had to fast Monks were also permitted several sugary fruit juices though itrsquos notable that the juice of mahua flowers madhukapuppharasa was specifically disallowed presumably owing to its associations with liquorThere is also the mention of apong a drink made by the Mising People of Northeast India One variety is made by adding the ash of rice husk to cooked rice along with starter cakes The semisolid mixture is fermented in a jar and then placed in a coneshaped bamboo basket lined with leaves and suspended over a vessel Water is poured over the mixture and the apong drips out of this filter cone Another simpler drink handia or haria is brewed in parts of Odisha and West Bengal This drink is made by mixing small starter cakes rice flour and herbs that have been mixed and left to develop certain flora with fermenting powers called lsquoranursquo to cooked rice The mixture is fermented in jars and then strainedA resident of a tribal village in Bolangiri Odisha picks mahua flowers to brew liquor James McHugh says Buddhist monks and nuns forbidden to take liquor were permitted sugary ldquomedicinesrdquo namely honey madhu and sugarcane syrup phanita along with oil ghee and butter during the hours when otherwise they had to fast Monks were also permitted several sugary fruit juices although the juice of mahua flowers madhukapuppharasa was specifically disallowed presumably owing to its associations with liquor PicGetty ImagesIn one of the chapters on sura McHugh brings to light how this drink has been largely absent from surveys of alcohol history Confusing to many scholars of early India sura was made from grains and was highly developed as a drink and discussed in many texts in premodern India Like beer or ale in Europe the word sura covers a number of drinks and the one made from grains was likely to be associated with local agricultural production as opposed to eg imported wine The experts brewed simpler versions for occasionsMany a time McHugh would go through laborious texts only to find one or two relevant lines to take away ldquoIt was a circular process I read and translated the material I found starting from the recipes for a given drink and then looked for references to those drinks in a text cycling through the material quite a few times until it illuminated itselfrdquo he adds He learnt that in some ways the archives have very a limited perspective ldquoThere arenrsquot many voices or texts written by brewers and some Buddhist or dharmashastra texts essentially frown on drinking so you donrsquot get the whole picture On the other side the Sanskrit archive is enormous with so much material that can be used for methodological reflectionmdashfor instance the description of people in the drinking house are tentative and hypothetical based on very filtered materialrdquo he addsJames McHughWhile Islam and Christianity have been left out in the research McHugh says it is simply because of the languages he is trained inmdashSanskrit Pali and Prakrit ldquoThere have been classical exclusions as wellmdashlike therersquos no classical Tamil or medieval Marathi material The blurb on the book says comprehensive but it is along the lines of everything from recipes to tantras and medicine itrsquos not comprehensive in terms of all periods religions and regions Thatrsquos good because there is so much more work to do and this book is a promising startrdquoWhy unholy brew we ask ldquoBrewing in India was understood as a putting together of things that created intoxicating power hence lsquobrewrsquo I chose lsquounholyrsquo because it was about religion and religious texts But also unholy sometimes has that sense of expression like the horrific noise first thing in the morning and yoursquod say what was that unholy terrible noise Besides I was stuck with the title because I was commissioned to it By the end of the book I had an urge to use the title lsquoan ocean of surarsquo but it was too late to change itrdquoWritten in a simple lucid manner this book is for anyone interested in this unique aspect of Indian history or the history of alcohol in general For those who refrain from alcohol there are also some sophisticated arguments against drinkingCups and chaptersMcHugh has introduced an interesting way to structure the book with nine cups chapters The reader experience goes from the basicmdashdrinks and drinking to the higherordermdashdrink and religion The cups take inspiration from Goddess Sura Varuni devi who in one tantric text describes in detail the cups and jars in which she serves the gods and when one drop falls onto the earth it becomes the source of all the drinks hereRapid fire on ancient boozeSura or somaSura the drinks of the humans Soma is divine I donrsquot think Irsquod be allowed thatWine or toddyToddy is great and fresh but I am just more accustomed to wineFavourite story from the bookThe one at the beginning where this man discovers alcohol in a tree and starts selling it with a friend then Buddha from his previous birth comes in the form of Indra and asks him to refrain from doing itMost fascinating drink from the ancient textsMyrah Sugar in the form of honey or similar is fermented with herbs and peppers and jaggery is added to let that ferment a second time It has dry complicated flavoursThe book on fragrance or book on alcoholmdashyour favouriteBoth led me to meet with all kinds of peoplemdashperfumers aromatics brewers etc The stories in the alcohol one are more fun even the bad stuff had drama The perfume one was more romantic and sedateDid the book change your drinking habitsI am more openminded towards drinking traditional drinks now I find them to have a more nutty woody oxidised flavour that you experience in say sherry and dry madeira I seek those now