Daru and bhang; cultural factors in the choice of intoxicant.

Throughout the year 1951 the writer of this article was engaged in a field study which involved his living in intimate daily contact with the inhabitants of a large village2 in the State of Rajasthan, in northern India. In the course of that year, he got to know this community fairly well; and he was struck by one unexpected aspect of the caste system which permeates Hindu society. This was the violent antithesis shown in the community attitudes toward the two most prevalent forms of intoxication-that caused by drinking daru, a potent distilled alcohol derived from the flowers of the mahwa tree (Bassia latifundia), and that due to bhang, which is the local name for an infusion of the leaves and stems of Indian hemp (Cannabis indica) which is readily cultivable in this region. Each had its partisans, and each decried the other faction.