drunkards; so much so, that in the later Vedas and in the “Institutes of Manu” a check was put upon such practices, and they were denounced as sinful. But so too were the laity. There was another intoxicating drink besides soma of which mention is made in the Vedas. It was called “sura,” and was much more inebriating than soma, which was the drink of the sacrifices, and therefore the supposed beverage of the gods, whilst sura was that of the common people. The plant which, in the Vedic age, entered largely into its composition was a tall grass of India, one of the genus _Panicum_, and the other ingredients were water, curds, honey, melted butter, and barley.[67] At a later period a liquor called sura seems to have been actually distilled from a preparation of rice, barley, black pepper, lemon juice, ginger, and hot water. The sura drink was in general use, and the proof alike of its extended consumption amongst the people, as well as of its being the cause of much crime in those days, is to be found in several verses of the Vedic hymns. In one place it is spoken of as a poison, kept at home suspended in a leather bottle;[68] in another, the excessive intoxication of Indra with soma is compared to the bad drunkenness caused by sura;[69] and in a well-known verse quoted by Professor Max Müller,[70] it is thus referred to: “It was not our own disposition, O Varuna; it was temptation, Intoxication caused by sura, passion, thoughtlessness,” &c. The Rig-Veda is certainly the most extraordinary publication of a sacred character that can be imagined in respect to drink and drunkenness; and the space occupied by references to the potations of the gods—for there is hardly a hymn that is free from them—shows clearly that the Vedic people, both priests and laymen, must have been terrible drunkards, and must have believed their Deities to have been the same. At a somewhat later period, however, we find the habit denounced in forcible terms and the severest penalties attached to its practice; in fact, it is spoken of as heinous in the last degree, and is compared to the murder of a Brahman.