Soma is one of the
Hindu pantheon's most mysterious deities.
The Rg Veda's 120 hymns to soma depict it as a plant, the
juice extracted from that plant, and the deified form of both juice and plant.
The Vedic songs describe in detail how the sacrifice priests
squeezed, strained, and filtered it before eventually consuming it, which gave
them visions.
Although there is no consensus on what the soma plant is,
these songs depict it as some type of mind-altering narcotic.
Since late Vedic times, its uniqueness has been forgotten,
and several replacements have been utilized in ceremonies.
Although soma is described as hallucinogenic in the hymns,
this does not have to be taken literally.
Such visions may be explained in purely psychological terms,
as a result of the priests' elevated expectations in the sacrifi cial arena.
If soma was genuinely mind-altering, it couldn't have been
an alcoholic beverage since it was produced and eaten on the same day, leaving
no time for fermentation to occur.
According to one interpretation, soma was hashish (charas),
which is still used in rituals today.
R. G. Wasson provided the most fascinating idea, claiming
that soma was Amonita mus caria, a mind-altering fungus with a long history of
usage in Asian shamanic traditions.
Despite the fact that Wasson's hypothesis explains soma's
capacity to have rapid impact, many Indologists disagree.
Robert Gordon Wasson, Soma, 1971; J. Brough, "Soma and
Amonita Muscaria," The Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies, Vol. 34, 1971, for conflicting observations.
