Hymns on 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. Soma can be dangerous but the effects of drinking Soma are usually admired, or at least sought after. Drinking of Soma signifies a sense of immense personal power, an intimation of immortality and it makes individuals experience hallucinations of trance.

The hymns say that Soma has the power to overpower everything and is considered a sage and a seer inspired by poetry. He heals the sick and helps the blind and the lame. The Soma also has the capacity to drive away all sorts of evil from the earth and the sky and also drives away the enemy. It is believed that it is Soma who prevents the greedy from getting what they want.

Through the Rig Vedic hymns on Soma the worshippers has asked Soma to be merciful to them and not to wound their heart or to terrify them. The worshippers have also asked Soma not to enrage them. The prayer also says that Soma should help mankind to keep away from all evils and to free their minds from all kind of hatred and failures.

In the hymns the process of filtering Soma has been described as a process which is similar to the milking of rain out of the cold and the down pouring of the torrents upon the earth and to the pouring of seed into a womb to produce children and to the winning of race. Sometimes Soma is identified as a male or a female and at other times he is further identified with more abstract and general forms such as navel of Order, the pillar of the sky and the pasture or lap of Aditi which is considered the highest heaven.

The hymns say that honey of Soma is a great feast and is for the man who follows the right path. According to the hymns Soma bring in supreme ecstasy and Indra drinks it for its sweetness.

A belief which is expressed with the help of the hymns is that under the influence of the Soma a sage or a god starts praising himself. It is under the influence of Soma that a sage boasts of himself.

In one part of the hymn it has been mentioned that the composer of the hymn had invoked Indra to have Soma and in the process he had also tasted the ecstatic drink. It was under the hallucinating effect of the drink that he had asked the god for granting immortality to him.

Finally it can be said that the hymns celebrate 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.