In 1839 William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, an Irish physician working for the East India Company in Calcutta, published the first systematic clinical trials of cannabis in modern medicine. He dosed animals, patients with rheumatism, and even himself-curious medical students, recording effects such as sleepiness, euphoria, and a rigid trance-like state, and he reported that most of the drug's side effects were milder than those of alcohol, opium, or tobacco. His reports led to cannabis being adopted in Western pharmacology for pain, muscle spasms, and nausea over the following decades. The work also shows how colonial science drew heavily on local knowledge of the plant already used in India.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.