Hashish: The Lost Legend

"Excuse me, sir, hashish?" asked the young Indian man on the corner near the small tumble-down Kali temple. The author had just been sitting in the famous Blue Lassi Cafe in the back alleys of the Benares old city, not far from the Burning Ghats, sipping on a pomegranate lassi and watching as no less than three funeral processions - groups of men carrying a body on a bamboo stretcher - hurried by down to the banks of the Ganges for the cremation. He looked over the young man. "Hashish?" he asked. "Yes sir," said the vendor. And at this the young man produced a large slab of dark brown aromatic hashish putty under which he waved a lit match so that a prospective buyer might smell the authenticity of the goods. He described it as "Afghani." He furthermore explained that the six or seven soldiers seated on the street corner two buildings back, armed with machine guns and other deadly weaponry, were only concerned with terrorists, not tourists.  "This is a holy city, sir," he said. "Bhang is sacred to Lord Shiva." The author was well aware of this fact, but also realised that it is not necessary to purchase the stuff from random Hindoos on the street when it can be procured from government approved bhang stores, of which there is one immediately across from the Blue Lassi Cafe. 

Nevertheless, the episode, and the scent of the hashish, did remind the author of a certain book that may be of interest to readers of this web log. There is, needless to relate, a small library of orientalist literature devoted to hashish, and the author has read the chief volumes. The sensuality of the drug was once synonymous with the sensuality of the east and it was celebrated in prose, poetry and the visual arts as a distinct orientalist theme. Beyond this sensuality, like opium it was renowned as a vehicle of the imagination. 

This, of course, was before prohibition, and before the advent of puritanical Mahometan nation states in the violent and chaotic catastrophe that has been the post-colonial age. Hindoo India has not been immune to this, but a city such as Benares - where the author now resides - resists change and the stupidities of modernity better than most. There has never been prohibition in Benares, although - as the street vendor said - "bhang" was and remains in a sacred rather than merely recreational context. It is a pity, it must be said, that Western hippys and ferals and the useless offspring of baby boomers frequent the city dressed as secular cheesecloth parodies of sadhoos abusing the sanctity of the herb and its celestial oils. 

The book that comes to mind, a classic of the genre, is the rare and intoxicating Hashish: the Lost Legend, by Fritz Lemmermayer, first published 1898. The present author has had the privilege of seeing a hard copy of this wonderful literary gem but was not able to purchase it at the time. Instead, he has had to read the text as an ebook, which is a travesty for such a work. One day, perhaps, when he is flush with cash, a hard copy will come his way. 

Hashish: the Lost Legend is a tale of star-crossed romance between a certain Ali and a voluptuous woman named Zuleyka. They fall in love even though they come from warring tribes. Of course. One day, however, Zuleyka bathes naked in an alleged fountain of youth and is seen by the villainous Rustan who determines to own her for himself. In a time honoured tradition, the evil Rustan raids their wedding, kills half the guests and makes off with the bride. So what is poor Ali to do? He is approached at this point by a certain "Yusuf" who introduces him to hashish, and fired by dreams, he is transformed into a passionate warrior. The story proceeds from there. It is a predictable tale of the oriental type - quasi-oriental, we might say, and an orientalist indulgence in that respect - and more like the plot of an opera than of a novel, but it is a famous book all the same and considered an orientalist treasure. In the genre of romantic hashish tales it deserves a prominent place. It celebrates the hashish dream as a mode of the romantic imagination. A very fine English edition - that rescued the text from Yiddish - was published by Process Books not long ago. 

(The other work that comes to mind here is Paul Verlaine's Hashish & Incense, but it is utterly impossible to find.)

The role of bhang in Shaivite spirituality is a matter for another post. Hashish, in fact, is a particular preparation of bhang and is preferred by the Mahometans rather than by the Hindoos. These things have a particular history and a particular affinity for certain spiritual modes, certain temperaments and certain ethnic propensities. The orientalists were struck by the powers of hashish upon the imagination, which, like all romantics, they regarded as the spiritual faculty par excellence. It does need to be said, though, that this was not a rootless and vapid imagination such as is known by the diminished rogues of our own time; it was axial and exact. Choofing on bhang - in whatever preparation - was not some idle indulgence but a method of transport to higher states. The ancient labyrinthine streets of Benares old city is perhaps the one place on earth today where this fact still seems a credible ideal.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black