( 41 )
a fuller account of it than Dioscorides, though not fuller than Pliny. It would
seem, then, that the use of the plant as a source of fibre was early known in
Central Asia that it passed westward from Scythia along the northern outskirts
of the Mediterranean civilizations that it either accompanied the wave of
migration that carried the Celtic races into Western Europe, or was trans-
mitted to these races by their contact with subsequent arrivals from the Cen-
tral Asian area in which the plant is indigenous, and where its economic use was
known ; that its use did not, on the way westward, spread at once into the penin-
sulas of Italy and Greece, but that the Greeks as well as the Latins learned it
at quite a late period from the Gauls, and. in turn transmitted it to Syria and
Palestine.
The earlier Arab writers like Avicenna (A.D. 980) and Rázi, in whose
writings the first Arab notices of hemp occur, have copied from Galen and
Dioscorides both the uses and the name of the plant, and it is interesting to
note that the Arab names for the plant as a fibre-yielding species, for the
fibre it yields, and for the fabrics produced from the fibre, are all modifications
of the Greek name, and indicate beyond the possibility of dispute that the
channel by which the plant reached Arabia was from Greece, probably through
Syria.
The earliest notice of the plant in India is its mention in the Atharva Veda,
where the context shows that the narcotic property was already known.¹ The
word used, however, indicates that the plant had received the name in con-
nection with its economic use, and the perpetuation of that name in connection
with the other property indicates fairly clearly that its economic use was that
for which the plant was first brought eastward. The later appearance of
a whole group of names that have reference to the narcotic quality would
seem to indicate that this was becoming the more familiar use of the two.
The absence of any reference to the plant in the earlier Vedas, and the
circumstances mentioned above, seem to indicate that the eastern migration
of hemp was very nearly parallel in its course to the western migration.
The earlier invading tribes did not know of it ; absence from the older V e d a s
of reference to it is parallel with the absence of reference from the older
Greek and Latin authors. It is true that attempts have been made to identify
t h e ' N e p e n t h e ' o f t h e O d y s s e y , w h i c h H e l e n g a v e t o T e l e m a c h u s , w i t h ' h e m p . '
But as in the case of shesh in Hebrew, the suggestion will not bear examination.
The hemp-plant was not known in Greece, even by its own name, till long
after the Odyssey was known, and the substance mentioned in the Odyssey as
a narcotic came from Egypt, where also, as we have seen, hemp was unknown.
The most interesting feature in its history as indicated by the Indian names is
the recognition of the narcotic powers of the drug, of which in the western
notices except the reference by Herodotus there seems to be no indication.
And the conclusion to which we seem impelled is that the plant was carried
eastward to India by some wave of migration subsequent to the earliest, just
as it was carried westward to Europe by some of the later waves of migration;
that just as on its way westward it was taken by tribes who avoided coming
into contact with the civilisations on the Mediterranean, it was carried eastward
by tribes who avoided coming into contact with the civilisations of Mesopotamia.
Finally, we must conclude that, having reached India as a fibre-yielding species,
the plant developed the narcotic property for which it is now chiefly celebrated
there.
The connection between the narcotic property and the vital functions
of the plant has already been shown, and reasons have been advanced for the
supposition that the production of the narcotic substance is a case of response
to the conditions of its environment. If this be true, the subsequent history of
the plant ought to accord with the assumption.
Having developed the narcotic property in India, the plant and its use
have spread northwards into the Himalayan valleys, into Tibet and into
China, where its original use was, as in Europe, as a fibre-plant westward into
Persia, where its name bhang has been transformed into beng and still further
westward—this time as a narcotic—into Syria, Arabia, and Egypt, where the
Persian name has been further modified into benj. And it is worthy of notice
¹
H . C . K e r r ,
R e p o r t ,
p .
2 .
G .