Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/101

Rh In a similar strain the Soma-plant is addressed.

It was bruised between two stones, mixed with milk or barley juice, and, when fermented, formed a strong, inebriating, ardent spirit—probably not very unlike the whisky of the present day.

It appears that the Rishis of the Vedas introduced this custom, or belief, into religion, Indra and all the other gods are everywhere represented as unable to perform any great exploit without the inspiration of the Soma, or, in plain English, until they were more or less drunk! Hear the Veda:

“May our Soma libation reach you, exhilarating, invigorating, inebriating, most precious. It is companionable, Indra, enjoyable, the overthrower of hosts, immortal.

“Thy inebriety is most intense: nevertheless thy acts are most beneficent.”—Vol. II, p. 169.

“Savory indeed is this Soma; sweet it is, sharp, and full of flavor; no one is able to encounter Indra in battle, after he has been quaffing this—by drinking of it Indra has been elevated to the slaying of Vritra,” etc.—Vol. III, p. 470.

“The stomach of Indra is as capacious a receptacle of Soma as a lake.”—Vol. III, p. 60. “The belly of Indra, which quaffs the Soma juice abundantly, swells like the ocean, and is ever moist, like the ample fluids of the palate.”— Vol. III, pp. 17, 231, 232. “Indra, quaff the Soma juice, repeatedly shaking it from your beard.”—Vol. II, p. 233. What common revelry is expressed in the following verse: “Saints and sages, sing the holy strain aloud, like screaming swans, and, together with the gods, drink the sweet juice of the Soma.”—Vol. III, p. 86.

This license runs riot, and “the goddesses, the wives of the gods,” (Vol. III. p. 316,) with earthly ladies, one of them (Viswavara) herself a Rishi and compiler of a Sukta (Vol. III, p. 273) in which she prays for “concord between man and wife,” all are joined—gods, goddesses, and “divine Rishis”—in high carousal. But, then, mark what Rishi Avatsara says of this lady, Viswavara, and of his brother Rishis, and the rest of the boisterous crew, all “gloriously drunk” together: