Though alcoholic liquor is now eschewed by the higher castes of
Hindus and forbidden by their religion, this has by no means always
been the case. In Vedic times the liquor known as Soma was held in so
much esteem by the Aryans that it was deified and worshipped as one
of their principal gods. Dr. Hopkins summarises [267] the attributes
of the divine wine, Soma, as follows, from passages in the Rig-Veda:
"This offering of the juice of the Soma-plant in India was performed
thrice daily. It is said in the Rig-Veda that Soma grows upon the
mountain Mujawat, that its or his father is Parjanya, the rain-god,
and that the waters are his sisters. From this mountain, or from
the sky, accounts differ, Soma was brought by a hawk. He is himself
represented in other places as a bird; and as a divinity he shares
in the praise given to Indra. It was he who helped Indra to slay
Vritra, the demon that keeps back the rain. Indra, intoxicated by
Soma, does his great deeds, and indeed all the gods depend on Soma
for immortality. Divine, a weapon-bearing god, he often simply takes
the place of Indra and other gods in Vedic eulogy. It is the god Soma
himself who slays Vritra, Soma who overthrows cities, Soma who begets
the gods, creates the sun, upholds the sky, prolongs life, sees all
things, and is the one best friend of god and man, the divine drop
(indu), the friend of Indra. As a god he is associated not only with
Indra but also with Agni, Rudra and Pushan. A few passages in the
later portion of the Rig-Veda show that Soma already was identified
with the moon before the end of this period. After this the lunar
yellow god was regularly regarded as the visible and divine Soma
of heaven represented on earth by the plant." Mr. Hopkins discards
the view advanced by some commentators that it is the moon and not
the beverage to which the Vedic hymns and worship are addressed,
and there is no reason to doubt that he is right.
The soma plant has been thought to be the Asclepias acida, [268] a
plant growing in Persia and called hom in Persian. The early Persians
believed that the hom plant gave great energy to body and mind. [269]
An angel is believed to preside over the plant, and the Hom Yast
is devoted to its praises. Twigs of it are beaten in water in the
smaller Agiari or fire-temple, and this water is considered sacred,
and is given to newborn children to drink. [270] Dr. Hopkins states,
however, that the hom or Asclepias acida was not the original soma,
as it does not grow in the Punjab region, but must have been a
later substitute. Afterwards again another kind of liquor, sura,
became the popular drink, and soma, which was now not so agreeable,
was reserved as the priests' (gods') drink, a sacrosanct beverage not
for the vulgar, and not esteemed by the priests except as it kept up
the rite. [271]
Soma is said to have been prepared from the juice of the creeper
already mentioned, which was diluted with water, mixed with barley
meal, clarified butter and the flour of wild rice, and fermented
in a jar for nine days. [272] Sura was simply arrack prepared from
rice-flour, or rice-beer.