Satapatha Bramhana Part 02

Author(s): Julius Eggeling
Publisher: Oxford

Page 16

INTRODUCTION.
xiii
The Soma, with whom the worshipper is chiefly concerned, is the Soma-plant, and the juice extracted from it for the holy service. This is the earthly Soma, or, so to speak, the Avatar of the divine Soma. The latter, on the other hand, is a luminous deity, a source of light and life. In the Brahmanas, Soma, in this respect, has become completely identified with the Moon, whose varying phases, and temporary obscuration at the time of new-moon, favoured the mystic notions of his serving as food to the Gods and Fathers (Manes); and of his periodical descents to the earth, with the view of sexual union with the waters and plants, and his own regeneration. Though this identification appears already clearly in several passages of the Rik, Vedic scholars seem mostly inclined to refer this conception to a secondary stage of developments According to Professor Roth, indeed, this identification would have no other mythological foundation than the coincidence of notions which finds its expression in the term indu* (commonly used for Soma, and in the later language for the moon), viz. as a drop' and 'a spark (drop of light).' This is not unlikely, but it does not of course help us to settle the point as to how that term came ultimately to be applied exclusively to the moon among heavenly luminaries. To the Vedic poet it is rather the sun that appears, if not identical, at any rate closely connected, with the divine Soma. The fact was first pointed out by Grassmann', who proposed to identify Pavamana, the 'pure-streamed, sparkling' Soma, with the, apparently solar, deity Puemuno of the
1 Or, as the vessel containing the divine Soma, the drink conferring immortality.
See, for instance, Sat. Br. 1, 6, 4, 5 seq. Possibly also the shape of the horned moon' may have facilitated the attribution to that luminary of a ball. like nature such as is ascribed to Soma; though a similar attribution, it is true, is made in the case of other heavenly objects whose outward appearance offers no such points of comparison.
M. A. Barth, The Vedic Religions, p. 37, on the other hand, is of opinion that this identification goes back to Indo-European times.
• St. Petersburg Dict. 8. v. According to A. Kuhn, the two myths of the descent of Fire and of the divine Liquor spring from one and the same conception, whence the spark of fire is conceived as a drop. 'Herabkunft,' p. 161.
Kubn's Zeitsch. f. Vergl. Spr. XVI, p. 183 seq.
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