SOMA was an ancient Aryan rite, a sacrifice to Indm (Zeus) of an intoxic,ating potion, consisting of fermented juice of plants mixed. with milk. Soma juice and its effects are repeatedly men tioned in the Vedas (i. pp. 21, 139, pp. 169, 233, 260, iii. p. 470). The Soma sacrifice now-a-days is not made with any spirituous fluid, but in Vedic times it seems to have been a dis tilled alcoholic fluid, and was offered to their deities,— 'The gods themselves with pleasure feel King Soma's influence o'er them steal ; And Indra once, as bards have told, Thus sang in merry mood of old :— This Soma is a god ; he cures The sharpest ills that man endures: He heals the sick, the sad he cheers, He nerves the weak, dispels their fears, The faint with martial ardour fires, With lofty thoughts the bard inspires, The soul from earth to heaven he lifts, So great and wondrous ere his gifts : Men feel the god within their veins, And cry in loud exulting strains,— " We've quaffed the Soma bright, And are immortal grown ; We've entered into light, And all the gods have knoun. What mortal now can harm, Or foeman vex us more? Through thee beyond alarm, Iinmortal god, wo soar."' The Rig Veda, ix. says, The purifying Sonia, like the sea rolling its waves, has poured forth songs, and hymns, and thoughts.' Thus per sonified, the Solna god bears a certain analogy to the Greek Dionysus or Bacchus. The two verses above are a nearly literal translation of Rig Veda, viii. 48, 3. The Soma plant of the Vedas is the Sarcostenuna virninale, a leafless asclepiad, svith white tlowenA in terminal umbels, which appear during the rains in the Dekhan.
It was gathered by moonlight, hence its name, from Soma, SANA., the moon, and carried to their 11011101 011 carts drawn by rams, Mid 11 fermented iiquor was prt paled by mixing its; juie atrained through a sieve of goat's hair, with barley and clarified butter or glii. This beer or wine W/1.4 Wied at all their religious festivals, and was used by the risltis at their meals.
Indra, according to Bunsen (iii. p. 587, 8, iv. p. 459), is the prototype of Zetia, and was a peraonification of ether. The Soma juice is the oblation or libation of the Vedic worship, and the lloma of the Paraee ; and Prof. II. II. Wilson (Introduction to the Rig Veda, p.36) says, 'Almost the whole of the Soma Veda is devoted to its eulogy, and this is no doubt little more than FL repetition of the Sonia Mandala of the Rig Veda.' The veneration of the Soma plant does not appear to have proceeded front any worship of the moon or planets, which are not, like the sun, objects of special adoration in the Veda. The Soma is mentioned in Menu, iii. pp. 83, 158, 180, 197, 257, v. p. 96, vii. p. 7, ix. p. 129, x. p. 88, xi. pp. 7, 12. All the ancestors of the Bralimans are styled Sorna-pa, moon-plant drinkers ; ' and the Soma sacrificial priests, the Sonia Yaji and Soma Devi.
Haug says the Iloma was a nasty drink. Win disehmann suggests that the Soma plant may be identical with the gogard tree, which enlightened the eyes, and Ampeltus, the vine of 13acchus, is also mentioned.—Buusea's Egypt; Rig Veda; Nala, p. 247.