Page:Wine in Ancient India.pdf/11

 juice which when duly pressed out and mixed with other ingredients and allowed to ferment yields the intoxicating sacrificial beverage. The process of preparation is given by Windischmann as :—

".........the plants plucked up by roots, collected by moonlight on mountains are carried on a car drawn by two goats to the place of sacrifice where a spot covered with grass and twigs is prepared, crushed between stones by the priests and then thrown into a sieve of loose woollen weave, whereas, after the whole had been further pressed by the hand and the juice trickles into a vessel or kettle which is placed beneath. The fluid is then mixed with sweet milk and sour milk or curds with wheaten and other flours and brought into a state of fermentation."*

In this way the juice was kept for nine days to ferment. "The beverage is divine, it purifies, it is a water of life, gives health and immortality and prepares the way to heaven."

It was taken with butter, curd, milk, fried or parched grains.—

Let me quote a few hymns of Rig Veda about Soma (IX. 66).

2. "O Soma ! your two leaves alternated and you attained a wonderful glory thereby. - * Vedic India—p. 172.