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204 The Concept of Pancasila in Indian Thought
mountains. Soma deity too is one of the most popular deities in the Rgvedic hymns; while drinking the sacrificer is said to experience the most invigorating and exhilerating spirit, which is often described in the hymns attributed to Soma in the Rgveda. In some of the hymns Soma is said to exhilerate Varuņa, Mitra, Indra and some other gods. 2 Soma is also said to possess all divinely characteristics. It is said to possess the real essence of any sacrifice or yajña or the panacea for all diseases. All gods are said to have drunk soma, not for the well being of themselves alone, but for the prosperity of the whole human race. The drinking of soma means the attainment of immortality for both the gods and the human beings.
Soma in the Ṛgveda is discribed as 'exhilerating' and 'intoxicating'. These adjectives such as 'invigorating', 'exhilerating' and 'intoxicating' refer not to the mundane pleasure derived in ordinary intoxication, but to transcendental joy or happiness derived by performing a yajña. However, this transcendental happiness is to be conceived as only of a conditional nature, which does not imply the infinite joy of emancipation or liberation but only happiness of heaven. Abstinence from this is therefore not promulgated in the Rgveda and in this sense it cannot be said that the root of the fifth sila lies in it, nor can this account be conceived as contradictory to this precept. The use of such intoxicating supernatural drink however is not given recognition in Śramanical system, because fundamentally they have no faith in the supremacy of the yajñas etc., nor do they have any supramundane value for these drinks.
any
However, the Rgvedic conception of intoxication does not confine itself to a description of soma alone, as has been
History of Sanskrit Literature-A. A. Macdonell, p. 166.
2. Dictionary of Eastern Religion-Winternitz.
3. अपाम सोमममृता अभूम । -- Rgveda, 8.48.3.
1.
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