New EJVS, 13-1: R.Stuhrmann: Capturing Light in the Rgveda : Soma botanically, pharmacologi cally, & by Kavis

[Michael Witzel]

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)

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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>
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/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>
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Indo-Eurasian_research/>
< http://users.primushost.com/~india/ejvs/>