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This is to announce a new issue of EJVS, vol.13-1, pp.1-93

 

Capturing Light in the Rgveda : Soma seen botanically,

pharmacologically, and in the eyes of the Kavis

 

by

Rainer Stuhrmann

 

It is availabe as pdf on our web site:

<http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/issues.html>

 

 

See the brief introduction below

(The paper itself is in German)

 

======

 

 

 

Capturing Light in the Rgveda : Soma seen botanically,

pharmacologically, and in the eyes of the Kavis

 

 

 

The nature of the intoxicating substance Soma, as found in the Rgveda,

has not yet been decided. After a period of intensive research, though,

the majority of Vedicists again tend to favor Ephedra, a stimulant

that keeps one awake and alert.

 

The present study, however, will show, after a brief overview of the

history of research, that the arguments for the Ephedra theory rest on

erroneous textual interpretations of the Rigveda. They neither agree

with an exact analysis of those textual clues that are botanically

utilizable nor with the pharmacology of the intoxication effects, as

described by the poets of the Soma hymns.

 

Rather, a detailed investigation of the Soma ritual indicates that Soma

must have been Amanita muscaria or pantherina. The data about preparing

and consuming this mushroom fit all technical details of the Soma

ritual, and the effects of intoxication, including its dreaded damaging

side effects, match best those of Amanita as described in toxicology

and pharmacology.

 

Next to general euphoria --sometimes, however, also fear-- and a

sensation of immortality, the most salient hallucinogenic effects of

intoxication are an intensive perception of light and of changes in the

dimensions of perceived sensory objects.

 

Soma inebriation is expressively glorified by the poets of the Soma

hymns as an important source of their poetical inspiration. The

intensified perception of light is cosmologically interpreted as the

creation of light by God Soma.

 

The hallucinogenically caused changes in the size of perceived objects

is developed as macroscopy of the sensory details of the Soma ritual

itself. Poetical daring creates a web of seemingly fantastic pictures

that are the key to the ‘obscure’ Soma hymns and their ‘bizarre’

cosmology.

 

The experience of hallucinogenic inebriation was understood by the

poets and the participants of the Soma ritual as an actual, true world,

higher than reality. For the poet-seers Soma was, in the first

instance, a drink of truth that unfolded hidden truths and

illuminated the cosmic principle of truth.

 

The powerful effect of the Soma ritual rests on the actualization, by

overcoming reality in inebriation, of this cosmic principle. At the

same time, Soma inebriation was interpreted as a temporary voyage into

the world of immortality.

 

In the late Rgvedic period, Soma intoxication went out of practice. The

original, hallucinogenically effective mushrooms were substituted, due

to increasing settlement in the riverine plains and the expansion

toward the east, by other plants that had different effects.

 

While the original hallucinogenic experience of inebriation gradually

was lost, the high reputation of the Soma ritual was employed as a

pattern that was usable in ritual for sacrificial speculations and for

models of macrocosmic explanations of the world.

 

The spiritual synthesis of the hallucinogenic Soma intoxication can be

understood well in the Rigveda, but the history of traces of

intoxication in post-Rgvedic time has not yet been written, and Soma’s

echo in Indian intellectual history has not yet been grasped.

 

 

 

Michael Witzel

Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street , 3rd floor, Cambridge MA 02138

1-617-495 3295 Fax: 496 8571

direct line: 496 2990

<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>

<Indo-Eurasian_research/>

< http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/>

 

______

If you give me six lines written by the hand

of the most honest of men, I will find something

in them which will hang him.

 

(Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main

du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi

le faire pendre.)

Cardinal Richelieu, Minister of Louis XIII

(Quoted: January 1641, in "Mirame")

------

---------------------------

Michael Witzel

Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, Harvard University

1 Bow Street , 3rd floor, Cambridge MA 02138

1-617-495 3295 Fax: 496 8571

direct line: 496 2990

<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm>

<Indo-Eurasian_research/>

< http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/>

 

 

 

 

 

 

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