Direction to buy Soma

[Frits Staal]

Hi Madhav,

I believe that the answer to your pre-final question is, Yes. As for the
final, I have thoughts ("thoughts" is just the word) on this and it is part
of the topic about which I hope to talk at the Leiden Vedic workshop in
May-June but if you send me an address where around Xmas/New Year things
might reach you with the least delay, I'll send you something.

best

Frits

At 04:42 PM 12/18/01 +0000, you wrote:
>The Aitareya-Braahma.na (3rd Adhyaaya, I think) begins with a statement:
praacyaam ha vai dizi
>devaa.h somam akrii.nan, tasmaat praacyaam dizi kriiyate.  The gods bought
Soma in the eastern
>direction, and hence Soma is to be bought in the eastern direction.  This
is understood in the
>commentaries as referring to the eastern side of the sacrificial
enclosure.  That is fine in the context of ritual
>performance.  However, does this statement have any relevance for the
history of IA migrations?  If
>Soma is originally to be found on the Muujavat mountain (somewhere in
Afghanistan? Hindukush?),
>does this AB statement indicate a location of the gods to the west of
Muujavat, so that this mountain
>would be to their east?  Any thoughts?
>
>                                                              Madhav
Deshpande
>
Frits Staal

http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/staal