Il vino nell’India antica: una frontiera culturale e un middle ground fra geografia, politica e religione

This article provides an overview of the presence of grapes, vines, and wine in India and its surrounding areas, revising contemporary academic literature and reviewing literary, archaeological, and anthropological evidence. Furthermore, the historical relevance of wine for Indo-Greeks and Indo-Scythians is considered. Later, the scholarly hypothesis that views the grape wine as a product imported into India from the northwestern areas will be discussed based on Buddhist sources. These sources attest to the presence of grapes and the use of alcoholic grape juice for the production of composite intoxicating drinks in ancient India, a fact that leads to a reconsideration of local production and the exploitation of other vine species besides Vitis vinifera. However, religious norms forbid the consumption of alcoholic drinks to Buddhists, and so we will finally discuss an exception: the concession to the consumption of alcohol for medical purposes. Thus, we will argue in favour of the actual use and consumption of grape wine by Buddhists and how this fact may have contributed to the spread and cultivation of the vine in India.