Table Of Contents
CREATION
DEATH
THE ELEMENTS OF SACRIFICE
THE HORSE SACRIFICE
GODS OF THE SACRIFICE: AGNI AND SOMA
SOMA
INDRA
GODS OF THE STORM
SOLAR GODS
SKY AND EARTH
VARUNA
RUDRA AND VISNU
REALIA
WOMEN
INCANTATIONS AND SPELLS
SOMA
THE Soma plant is visualized in the Rig Veda as a god and as a liquid, pressed by stones in wooden bowls and filtered through a woollen sieve. These processes are described in some detail (9.74, 10.94) and are the inspiration for a rich cloth of imagery woven by the Vedic poet, an imagery also applied to the flowing of the sacrificial butter (4.58): women uniting with lovers, wild animals attacking, rivers flowing to the sea. Soma can be dangerous (8.79.7-8; 8.48.10) but the effects of drinking Soma are usually admired, or at least sought after: a sense of immense personal power (10.119, particularly valuable in the god Indra), intimations of immortality (9.113), the assurance of immortality (8.48), and the hallucinations of trance (10.136). Soma’s form and activities are referred to in several other hymns in this collection: 8.91, 9.112, 10.85, 10.94, 10.109; the story of his descent from heaven (4.26-7) is the only episode in his mythology narrated in any detail.
8.79 This Restless Soma
1 This restless Soma – you try to grab him but he breaks away and overpowers everything. He is a sage and a seer inspired by poetry.
2 He covers the naked and heals all who are sick. The blind man sees; the lame man steps forth.
3 Soma, you are a broad defence against those who hate us, both enemies we have made ourselves and those made by others. .
4 Through your knowledge and skills, rushing forward you drive out of the sky and the earth the evil deed of the enemy.
5 Let those who seek find what they seek: let them receive the treasure given by the generous and stop the greedy from getting what they want.
6 Let him1 find what was lost before; let him push for- ward the man of truth. Let him stretch out the life- span that has not yet crossed its span.
7 Be kind and merciful to us, Soma; be good to our heart, without confusing our powers in your whirlwind.
8 King Soma, do not enrage us; do not terrify us; do not wound our heart with dazzling light.
9 Give help, when you see the evil plans of the gods in your own house.2 Generous king, keep away hatreds, keep away failures.
NOTES
1. Soma or the man inspired by Soma.
2. Soma is asked to intercede for the worshipper among the other gods, as Agni often does.
9.74 Soma Pressed in the Bowls
This hymn describes in metaphors the pressing of Soma in the Soma-bowls and the pouring of the juices through a filter made of wool. The processes are likened to the milking of rain out of the clouds and the downpouring of the torrents upon the earth; to the pouring of seed into a womb to produce children; and to the winning of a race. In addition to their function as metaphors, these images serve also to express the goals of life that the poet hopes will be achieved by the Soma sacrifice: rain, fertility, and wealth. Cows appear in all of these metaphors : as symbols of the milk or water with which the Soma is mixed; as clouds from which rain is milked; as women who bear children; and as the prize to be won by the racehorse. Soma appears sometimes as a male animal (calf, horse, bull), sometimes as a female (identified with the cows), like Parjanya and Agni in other hymns; he is further identified with more abstract and general forms such as the navel of Order, the pillar of the sky (here identified with the stalk of the Soma plant), and the pasture or lap of Aditi – the highest heaven (here identified with the Soma bowl). The metaphors intertwine in many ways, as when rain is called the seed of the sky or the water in the bowl is called a wave of the cosmic ocean.
1 Like a new-born child he bellows in the wood,1 the tawny racehorse straining to win the sun. He unites with the sky’s seed that grows great with milk.2 With kind thoughts we pray to him for far-reaching shelter.
2 He who is the pillar of the sky, the well-adorned support, the full stalk that encircles all around, he is the one who by tradition sacrifices to these two great world-halves. The poet3 holds together the conjoined pair, and the refreshing foods.
3 The honey of Soma is a great feast; the wide pasture of Aditi is for the man who follows the right way. Child of dawn, the bull who rules over the rain here, leader of the waters, worthy of hymns, he is the one who brings help here.
4 Butter and milk are milked from the living cloud; the navel of Order, the ambrosia is born. Together those who bring fine gifts satisfy him; the swollen men4 piss down the fluid set in motion.
5 The stalk roared as it united with the wave;5 for man he swells the skin that attracts the gods. He places in the lap of Aditi the seed by which we win sons and grandsons.
6 Relentlessly they6 flow down into the lter of a thousand streams; let them have offspring in the third realm of the world. Four hidden springs pouring forth butter carry down from the sky the ambrosia that is the oblation.
7 He takes on a white colour when he strains to win; Soma, the generous Asura, knows the whole world. He clings to inspired thought and ritual action as he goes forth; let
him hurl down from the sky the cask full of water.
8 Now he has gone to the white pot coated by cows; the racehorse has reached the
winning line and has won a hundred cows for Kaksivat, the man of a hundred winters.7 Longing for the gods in their heart, they8 hasten forth.
9 Clarifying Soma, when you are sated with waters your juice runs through the sieve made of wool. Polished by the poets, Soma who brings supreme ecstasy, be sweet for Indra to drink.
NOTES
1. Soma as a new-born calf or horse wanders in the ‘forest’ of the wooden pressing- bowls.
2. The seed of heaven is the rain that mixes with the milk of the clouds, as Soma mixes with the milk in the bowls.
3. Soma is identified with the sun, who is called a poet, propping apart and holding together the pair of sky and earth, his parents.
4. The Maruts are the swollen men (clouds) who urinate the Soma (a male image) after it has been milked from the clouds (a female image).
5. Soma is the living, androgynous cloud from which milk and rain are pressed. Soma is the stalk; the wave is the water that mixes with it. The skin of the plant swells like the leather water-skin likened to the fain-clouds (cf. 1.85.5, 5.83.7) or the overturned cask (v. 7), both attributes of Parjanya.
6. The streams of Soma likened to rains are to have their ‘off spring’ in the third realm, for the floods of rain renew themselves in heaven. Cf. 1.164.
7. Kaksivat, said to have been saved by the Asvins (1.116.7), may have regained his youth, as did many others helped by the Asvins.
8. The Soma juices, or the priests.
10.94 The Pressing-Stones
A hymn to the stones that press the Soma juice. The noise that they make while grinding the stalks of the plant, and their action in devouring (i.e. destroying) the fibres while releasing the juices, suggest the actions of animals (cows, bulls, horses) that growl or bellow and swallow the liquid.
1 Let them1 raise their voices, and let us raise our voices. Speak your speech2 to the stones that speak, when you stones, you mountains full of Soma, rush to bring the rhythmic sound to Indra.
2 They speak in a hundred ways, a thousand ways, howling with their green jaws.3 Working busily and well to do the good work, the stones have succeeded in eating the
oblation even before the priest of the oblation.
3 They speak: they have found the honey. They growl and gnaw on the cooked meat.4 As they snap at the branch of the red tree,5 the bulls who have grazed well begin to bellow.
4 They speak loudly, excited by the exhilarating drink. They shout to Indra: they have found the honey. Artfully they danced with the sisters that embrace them,6 making the earth echo with their stampings.
5 The eagles have sent their cry up to the sky. Ardently the dark hinds danced in the meadow. They plunge deep to the rendezvous with the lower stone; they infuse it with floods of the seed of the sun-bright one.7
6 Like brawny draught animals yoked together, these bulls bear the shaft and pull as a team. When they bellow, panting and chewing the cud, they sound like racehorses whinnying.
7 Sing to them that have ten girths,8 ten yoke-straps, ten harnesses, ten reins that never wear out, to them that are yoked ten times to bear ten shafts.
8 The stones are swift horses; their bridle with ten thongs fits them comfortably. They have tasted the filtered juice of the first pressing of the Soma juice milked from the stalk.
9 These Soma-eaters kiss Indra’s pair of bays. As they milk the stalk they sit upon the ox.9 When Indra has drunk the honey they have milked he grows great and acts like a bull.
10 Your stalk is a bull; surely you will not be harmed. You are always over owing with nourishment, sated with food. You are lovely in your splendour like the daughter of a rich man at whose sacrifice you stones rejoice.
11 Porous or not porous, the stones never tire, never rest, never die; they are never sick or old or shaken by passion; nicely fat, they are free from thirst and desire.
12 Your fathers10 are entirely firm in age after age; peace-loving, they do not budge from their spot. Untouched by age, the companions of the tawny one11 are like the saffron tree;12 they have made the sky and the earth listen to their uproar.
13 The stones speak the same when they are unyoked and when they are on their journey, with their stampings like the noises of men who drink deeply. Like those who sow seed and grow grain, they gobble up the Soma without diminishing it as they lap it up.
14 They have raised their voices for the sacrificial juice, like playful children jostling a mother. Set free the inspiration of the one who presses Soma, and let the stones that we hold in awe return to being stones.13
NOTES
1. The stones are first referred to, and then are addressed after the priests, at the end of the verse.
2. Here the poet addresses the priests, whose chants of invocation to Indra are equated with the noise of the stones that Indra hears.
3. Their jaws are green with the juice of the Soma plant, also called yellow, red (as in v. 3), or tawny.
4. Soma is here imagined as a sacrificial animal eaten by the stones.
5. Soma.
6. The ten fingers that hold the stones.
7. Soma.
8. The ten fingers again, here imagined as draught animals as in the previous verse.
9. The Soma stalks are placed upon an oxhide.
10. The mountains, as in verse 1, are the fathers of the stones.
11. Soma is the tawny one; as he grows in the mountains, they are his companions.
12. The stones (or the mountains) become yellow through contact with Soma.
13. That is, lose those awesome qualities that they took on during the ritual and return to being mere stones. The ritual objects must be desanctified after the ritual.
4.58 Butter
The clarified butter is visualized in three forms (v. 3) : as the actual butter used as the oblation, as the Soma juice, and as perfected speech in the heart of the poet.
1 The wave of honey arose out of the ocean; mingling with the stalk,1 it became the elixir of immortality, that is the secret name of butter: ‘tongue of the gods’, ‘navel of immortality’.
2 We will proclaim the name of butter; we will sustain it in this sacrifice by bowing low. When it has been pronounced, let the Brahmin priest hear it. This four- horned buffalo2 has let it slip out.3
3 Four horns, three feet has he; two heads and seven hands has he. Bound threefold, the bull bellows. The great god has entered mortals.
4 In the cow the gods found the butter that had been divided into three parts and hidden by the Panis.4 Indra brought forth one form, Surya one, and from the very substance of Vena5 they fashioned one.
5 These streams of butter flow from the ocean of the heart,6 enclosed by a hundred fences so that the enemy cannot see them. I gaze upon them; the golden reed7 is in their midst.
6 Our words flow together like rivers, made clear by understanding deep within the heart.8 These waves of butter flow like gazelles fleeing before a hunter.
7 Like whirlpools in the current of a river, the young streams of butter surge forth and swell with the waves, overtaking the wind like a chestnut racehorse that breaks through the sides of the track.9
8 Smiling, the streams of butter rush to Agni like beautiful women to a festival. They touch the fuel-sticks, and Agni joyously woos them.
9 I gaze upon them. They are like girls anointing themselves with perfumed oil to go to a wedding. Where Soma is pressed, where there is a sacrifice, there the streams of butter are made clear.
10 Let a fine song of praise flow forth, and a race that wins cows. Bring us auspicious riches. Lead this sacrifice of ours to the gods. The honeyed streams of butter become clear.
11 The whole universe is set in your essence within the ocean, within the heart, in the life-span.10 Let us win your honeyed wave that is brought to the face of the waters as they ow together.
NOTES
1. The Soma stalk mixes with the water to make the juice of immortality.
2. Soma is imagined as a buffalo and, in the next verse, as a bull.
3. He emits the secret, the Soma, and his seed, all as butter.
4. Indra released the cows that had been penned up by the Panis (human and demonic enemies of the invading Indo-Aryans), finding the butter (Soma as milk) within them. Cf. 3.31 and 10.108.
5. The seer identified with the sun-bird. Cf. 10.123.
6. The Soma juices, once imbibed, are said to be in the heart, as is the poet’s inspiration.
7. The Soma plant full of butter and seed.
8. Soma is clarified in the filter, butter is clarified by boiling, and thought is clarified in the heart.
9. The track is simultaneously the fence around the race-track, the banks of the river, and the normal channels of thought.
10. The life-span belongs both to butter (that gives immortality, as Soma) and to the poet (whose inspiration, in the ocean that is his heart, gives him immortality).
4.26-7 Soma and Indra and the Eagle
These two closely related hymns centre upon the myth of the theft of the elixir of immortality. This Indo-European theme appears in Russia as the fire-bird and in Greece as the myth of Prometheus – for Soma is the ‘fiery juice’, simultaneously fire and water (Agni-Somau), that gives immortality. Soma is born in heaven (or in the mountains) and closely guarded by demonic powers; an eagle carries Indra to heaven to bring the Soma to men and gods (or an eagle brings the Soma to Indra – cf. 4.18.13), escaping with merely the loss of a single feather from the one shot loosed by the guardian archer.
The first hymn begins with a song of drunken self-praise by Indra (vv. 1-4; cf. 10.119) and then tells the story of the eagle (vv. 5-7). The second hymn begins with the self-praise of the eagle (v. 1), then a verse spoken by Soma, and a return to the narration of the myth.
4.26
1 [Indra:] ‘I was Manu and I was the Sun;1 I am Kaksivat, the wise sage.2 I surpassed Kutsa the son of Arjuna;3 I am the inspired Usanas4 – look at me!
2 ‘I gave the earth to the Aryan; I gave rain to the mortal who made an offering. I led forth the roaring water;5 the gods followed after my wish.
3 ‘Ecstatic with Soma I shattered the nine and ninety fortresses of Sambara6 all at once, finishing off the inhabitant as the hundredth, as I gave aid to Divodäsa Atithigva.
4 ‘O Maruts, the bird shall be supreme above all birds, the swift-flying eagle above all eagles, since by his own driving power that needs no chariot wheels, with his powerful wings he brought to man the oblation loved by the gods.’
5 Fluttering7 as he brought it8 down, the bird swift as thought shot forth on the wide path; swiftly the eagle came with the honey of Soma and won fame for that.
6 Stretching out in flight, holding the stem, the eagle brought the exhilarating and intoxicating drink from the distance. Accompanied by the gods,9 the bird clutched the Soma tightly after he took it from that highest heaven.
7 When the eagle had taken the Soma, he brought it for a thousand and ten thousand pressings at once. The bringer of abundance10 left his enemies behind there; ecstatic with Soma, the wise one left the fools.
4.27
1 [The eagle:] ‘While still in the womb, I knew all the generations of these gods. A hundred iron fortresses guarded me,11 but I, the eagle,12 swiftly flew away.’
2 [Soma:] ‘He]13 did not drag me out against my will, for I surpassed him in energy and manly strength. In a flash, the bringer of abundance left his enemies behind as he outran the winds, swelling with power.’
3 As the eagle came shrieking down from heaven, and as they 14 led the bringer of abundance down from there like the wind, as the archer Krsanu,15 reacting quickly,
aimed down at hi and let loose his bowstring,
4 the eagle bearing Indra brought him down like Bhujyu16 from the summits of heaven, stretching out in swift flight. Then a wing feather17 fell in mid-air18 from the bird as he swooped on the path of flight.
5 The white goblet over flowing with cows’ milk, the nest honey, the clear juice offered by the priests19 -now let the generous Indra raise it to drink until ecstatic with Soma; let the hero raise it to drink until ecstatic with Soma.
NOTES
1. In his ecstatic sense of self-importance and omnipotence, Indra identifies himself with various mythic personages; the sun is another form of the prize won by the celestial fire-bird (or, in other variants, the sun is the fire-bird himself), and Manu, the eponymous ancestor of mankind, is the one to whom the Soma is brought (v.4).
2. Indra identifies himself with the sage whom he inspires. Cf. Kak??vat in 9.74.8.
3. Indra and Kutsa are sometimes enemies in the Rig Veda, sometimes allies in feats such as fighting with the serpent Susna and stealing the solar disc.
4. Usanas is an inspired sage and priest.
5. By destroying the fortresses of the demons, Indra releases the waters; cf. 1.32.
6. A demon, the enemy of Indra and of Divodasa; with Indra’s help, Divodasa destroys the demon’s fortresses that imprison the eagle with the Soma.
7. In fear of the archer shooting at him (4.27.3).
8. The Soma.
9. The gods as the attendants of Indra.
10. Indra, perhaps riding on the eagle. Elsewhere (cf. 1.116.13), the bringer of abundance (Purandhi) is a female divinity.
11. Again an allusion to the demon’s fortresses (cf. 4.26.3), in which the eagle is kept; perhaps the Soma was guarded there and the eagle was kept there after the theft, though Soma may have been imprisoned alone earlier in order to forestall the theft.
12. The eagle boasts in response to Indra’s praise of him (4.26.4).
13. The eagle, or Indra riding on the eagle.
14. Probably the gods, or perhaps the winds mentioned in the previous verse.
15. A demon placed as guardian over the Soma.
16. The Asvins rescued Bhujyu from the ocean. Cf. 1.116.3-4.
17. The feather turned into a plant used as a substitute for the Soma plant.
18. Half-way between sky and earth.
19. The Adhvaryus, responsible for the performance of the Soma ritual.
10.119 The Soma-Drinker Praises Himself
Under the influence of the drug Soma, a sage or god praises himself.1 The god may be Indra or Agni, though the former is more likely and is supported by the Indian commentarial tradition; either god may be incarnate in the worshipper speaking the hymn. As he drinks, his boasts become progressively more Gargantuan.
1 This, yes, this is my thought: I will win2 a cow and a horse. Have I not drunk Soma?
2 Like impetuous winds, the drinks have lifted me up. Have I not drunk Soma?
3 The drinks have lifted me up, like swift horses bolting with a chariot. Have I not drunk Soma?
4 The prayer has come to me 3 as a lowing cow comes to her beloved son. Have I not drunk Soma?
5 I turn the prayer around in my3 heart, as a wheelwright turns a chariot seat. Have I not drunk Soma?
6 The five tribes 4 are no more to me than a mote in the eye.5 Have I not drunk Soma?
7 The two world halves 6 cannot be set against7 a single wing of mine.8 Have I not drunk Soma?
8 In my vastness, I surpassed the sky and this vast earth. Have I not drunk Soma?
9 Yes ! I will place the earth here, or perhaps there. Have I not drunk Soma?
10 I will thrash the earth soundly, here, or perhaps there. Have I not drunk Soma?
11 One of my wings is in the sky; I have trailed the other below.9 Have I not drunk Soma?
12 I am huge, huge! flying to the cloud. Have I not drunk Soma?
13 I am going10 – a well-stocked house, carrying the oblation to the gods.11 Have I not drunk Soma?
NOTES
1. Cf. 4.26.1-3, 4.27.1.
2. The verb can mean to win for oneself or for someone else. If Indra is speaking, he wants them for himself; if Agni, to transmit to the other gods or to give to the poet; if the poet, to give to the gods. Since the poet imagines that he has become a god, all of these meanings are simultaneously present.
3. As a god, he receives the prayer and ‘turns it around’ to decide whether or not to accept it; as a poet, he receives the inspiration of the prayer and ‘turns it around’ to perfect it.
4. The whole of the Vedic tribal world.
5. Alternatively, worth no more than a glance.
6. Sky and earth.
7. ‘Set against’ both in the sense of set in opposition to and set up as equal to.
8. Agni takes the form of a bird or a winged horse, but the poet may simply feel that he is flying, a frequent symptom of drug-induced ecstasy. Cf. 10.136.2-4.
9. He imagines himself to have grown so large that he touches heaven and earth at the same time.
10. A salutation of farewell, as he heads for heaven and the gods.
11. A compound image, of a house full of Soma (his stomach being the larder), a flying palace (common in later Indian mythology), and the god Agni carrying the oblation – the Soma – to the gods.
9.113 The Ecstasy of Soma
The poet begins by inviting Indra to drink Soma with him and then invokes Soma for himself, praising him. He then asks Soma to make him immortal, as he becomes inspired under the hallucinogenic in infuence of the drug (v. 6).
1 Let Indra the killer of Vrtra drink Soma in Saryanavat,1 gathering his strength within himself, to do a great heroic deed. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
2 Purify yourself, generous Soma from Arjika,1 master of the quarters of the sky. Pressed with sacred words, with truth and faith and ardour,2 O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
3 The daughter of the sun has brought the buffalo raised by Parjanya.3 The divine youths have received him and placed the juice in Soma. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
4 You speak of the sacred, as your brightness is sacred; you speak the truth, as your deeds are true.4 You speak of faith, King Soma, as you are carefully prepared by the sacrificial priest. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
5 The floods of the high one, the truly awesome one, flow together. The juices of him so full of juice mingle together as you, the tawny one, purify yourself with prayer. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
6 Where the high priest speaks rhythmic words, O Purifier, holding the pressing-stone, feeling that he has become great with the Soma, giving birth to joy through the Soma, O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
7 Where the inextinguishable light shines, the world where the sun was placed, in that immortal, unfading world, O Purifier, place me. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
8 Where Vivasvan’s son is king,5 where heaven is enclosed, where those young waters are6 – there make me immortal. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
9 Where they move as they will, in the triple dome, in the third heaven of heaven, where the worlds are made of light, there make me immortal. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
10 Where there are desires and longings, at the sun’s zenith, where the dead are fed and satisfied,6 there make me immortal. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
11 Where there are joys and pleasures, gladness and delight, where the desires of desire are fulfilled, there make me immortal. O drop of Soma, flow for Indra.
NOTES
1 The mountains where Soma is found.
2 Tapas, the heat generated by sacrificial activity (and, later, by asceticism).
3 The daughter of the sun is the wife of Soma; Soma is some times called a buffalo (or a bull or stallion) ; Parjanya, god of fructifying rain, makes Soma and other plants grow (cf. 5.83.1, 5.83.5, 5.83.10; 7.101.2, 7.101.6).
4 That is, the deeds done under the influence of Soma are true (cf. in vino Veritas).
5 Yama, the son of Vivasvan, is king in the world of the dead, here (and elsewhere in the Rig Veda) thought of as being in heaven, where the dead are nourished by the offerings made to them by their descendants.
6 The cosmic waters born in heaven.
8.48 We Have Drunk the Soma
This hymn celebrates the effects of Soma, particularly the feeling of being set free and released into boundless open space, and the belief that the drinker is immortal.
1 I have tasted the sweet drink of life, knowing that it inspires good thoughts and joyous expansiveness to the extreme, that all the gods and mortals seek it together, calling it honey.1
2 When you penetrate inside, you will know no limits,2 and you will avert the wrath of the gods. Enjoying Indra’s friendship, O drop of Soma, bring riches as a docile cow3 brings the yoke.
3 We have drunk the Soma; we have become immortal; 4 we have gone to the light; we have found the gods. What can hatred and the malice of a mortal do to us now, O immortal one?
4 When we have drunk you, O drop of Soma, be good to our heart, kind as a father to his son, thoughtful as a friend to a friend. Far-famed Soma, stretch out5 our life-span so that we may live.
5 The glorious drops that I have drunk set me free in wide space. You have bound me together in my limbs as thongs bind a chariot. Let the drops protect me from the foot that stumbles 6 and keep lameness away from me.
6 Inflame me like a fire kindled by friction; make us see far; make us richer, better. For when I am intoxicated with you, Soma, I think myself rich. Draw near and make us thrive.
7 We would enjoy you, pressed with a fervent heart, like riches from a father. King Soma, stretch out our life- spans as the sun stretches the spring days.
8 King Soma, have mercy on us for our well-being. Know that we are devoted to your laws. Passion and fury are stirred up.7 O drop of Soma, do not hand us over to the pleasure of the enemy.
9 For you, Soma, are the guardian of our body; watching over men, you have settled down in every limb. If we break your laws, O god, have mercy on us like a good friend, to make us better.
10 Let me join closely with my compassionate friend8 so that he will not injure me when I have drunk him. O lord of bay horses,9 for the Soma that is lodged in us I approach Indra to stretch out our life-span.
11 Weaknesses and diseases have gone; the forces of darkness10 have fled in terror. Soma has climbed up in us, expanding. We have come to the place where they stretch out life- spans.
12 The drop that we have drunk has entered our hearts, an immortal inside mortals. O fathers,11 let us serve that Soma with the oblations and abide in his mercy and kindness.
13 Uniting in agreement with the fathers, O drop of Soma, you have extended yourself through sky and earth. Let us serve him with an oblation; let us be masters of riches.
14 You protecting gods, speak out for us. Do not let sleep or harmful speech12 seize us. Let us, always dear to Soma, speak as men of power in the sacrificial gathering.
15 Soma, you give us the force of life on every side. Enter into us, finding the sunlight, watching over men. O drop of Soma, summon your helpers and protect us before and after.13
NOTES
1. Here, as elsewhere in the hymns to Soma, honey is not a reference to the product of bees or the Indo-European mead made from it, but refers to the essence and sweetness
of the ambrosia.
2. Inside the human body, the Soma becomes ‘boundless’ in the sense of producing a feeling of infinite expansion, a sensation char acteristic of psychedelic drugs. But the word (aditi) may also be taken as the proper name of the goddess Aditi, for Soma is called the youngest son of Aditi and Aditi’s function of liberating from sin might be relevant here : Soma, Aditi’s son, purifies from within and pacifies the angry gods.
3. The term denotes an obedient female animal, probably a draught animal; it could be a mare or a cow. Cf. Dawn harnessing docile cows to her chariot in order to bring treasure to the singer (1.92.2). These animals, though naturally fierce in the Indo- European world, were also capable of being tamed.
4. The poet has a vision of what life in heaven would be like, a kind of vague, temporary immortality, lasting ‘a long time’.
5. The verb means to cross in a forward direction, as one would cross a river, to push the farther bank of the life-span farther away. Cf. SB 11.1.6.6, in which Prajapati sees the end of his life as one would see the farther bank of a river. The metaphor is repeated in vv. 7 and 10-11, and the idea of prolonging life (or of obtaining the limited immortality which consists in a full life-span) is central to the hymn. Cf. also the recurrent Vedic themes of ‘stretching the thread’ of the sacrifice and expanding in space.
6. The releasing effect of the drug described in the first part of this verse is immediately contrasted with a binding, perhaps by Soma, perhaps by someone else, and then with some sort of stumbling; this stumbling may involve actual injury, prefigured in the ‘binding with thongs’ and followed by the ‘lameness’ of the next phrase. The verse may also imply more metaphysical mistakes, but the literal meaning might refer to stumbling and falling in physical clumsiness as a result of the ecstasy induced by Soma.
7. Soma stirs not only the emotions of the drinkers but also the unpredictable emotions of the enemy mentioned in the next phrase.
8. Soma.
9. Indra, here as elsewhere identified with Soma. The singer approaches Indra to come ‘for’ Soma in the sense of ‘in order to enjoy’ Soma or ‘in return for being given’ Soma, but in any case to act, like Soma, to prolong life, or even to allow Soma to remain in the belly for a long time.
10. Personified as females.
11. The fathers, as drinkers of Soma, are called to witness.
12. ‘Harmful speech’ may mean injurious slander or may refer to the violation of the vows of remaining awake and silent in the rite of initiation into the Soma sacrifice. Cf. 10.18.14.
13. The worshipper asks to be surrounded and protected now and forever in his drug- induced vulnerability.
10.136 The Long-haired Ascetic
The long-haired ascetic (Kesin), an early precursor of the Upanisadic yogi, drinks a drug (probably some hallucinogen other than Soma) in the company of Rudra, the master of poison and a god who is excluded from the Soma sacrifice. The hallucinations described in the hymn are related to but not the same as those attributed to Soma-drinkers in 9.112, 10.119, etc.
1 Long-hair holds fire, holds the drug, holds sky and earth. Long-hair reveals everything, so that everyone can see the sun.1 Long-hair declares the light.
2 These ascetics, swathed in wind,2 put dirty red rags on.3 When gods enter them, they ride with the rush of the wind.
3 ‘Crazy with asceticism, we have mounted the wind.4 Our bodies are all you mere mortals can see.’
4 He sails through the air, looking down on all shapes below.5 The ascetic is friend to this god and that god, devoted to what is well done.
5 The stallion of the wind, friend of gales, lashed on by gods – the ascetic lives in the two seas, on the east and on the west.
6 He moves with the motion of heavenly girls 6 and youths, of wild beasts. Long-hair, reading their minds, is their sweet, their most exciting friend.
7 The wind has churned it7 up; Kunamnama8 prepared it for him. Long-hair drinks from the cup, sharing the drug 9 with Rudra.
NOTES
1. This act is attributed to other Vedic gods, too. Cf. 1.50.5.
2. That is, they are naked; but the connection with the wind is also literally important, as in verses 3, 5, and 7.
3. Some are naked, some wear red (later saffron) rags.
4. The ascetic rides the wind as if it were a horse; cf. v. 5. The ascetic controls the wind by controlling his own breath.
5. This act is often attributed to the sun. The ecstatic ascetic takes on the characteristics of several gods. The verse also describes the sensation of flying outside of one’s own body, observed below (cf. v. 3).
6. The Apsarases or nymphs of heaven, with their companions the Gandharvas.
7. The drug.
8. A female deity who appears only here; her name may indicate a witch or a hunchback.
9. Visa, a drug or poison.
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