Mead ingredients of alcoholic beverages led to commercial mead becoming a more obscure beverage until recently. Some monasteries kept up the old traditions of mead-making as a by-product of beekeeping, especially in areas where grapes could not be grown. The English "mead" – "fermented honey drink" – derives from the Old English "meodu" or "medu", and Proto-Germanic, *"meduz" (source also of Old Norse mjöðr, Danish mjød, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch mede, Old High German metu, German Met "mead"). "Madh", and the related terms "mad" (मद, مد) and "madira" (मदिरा, مدِرا), also mean alcohol. These words are all derived from the
Sura (alcoholic drink) several spices) and "majja" (maybe equivalent of Sanskrit "madhu", mead or hydromel), and renunciation of its usage constitutes the 5th of the Buddhist precepts (pañca-sīlāni): "I undertake the training rule to abstain from fermented drinks which cause heedlessness" ("Surāmerayamajjapamādaṭṭhānā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi"). Sura (alcoholic drink) Surāh (Sanskrit and Pāli; Devanāgarī: सुरा) is a strong distilled alcoholic drink. It is referred to as an anaesthetic by Suśruta (a surgeon in India circa 400 BCE). Other ancient medical authorities also mention it; Charaka referred to making a woman with a miscarriage senseless to pain by administering alcoholic drinks like "surā", "sīdhu", "ariṣṭa",