Appeared in theElectronic Journal of Vedic Studies9.1(editor-in-chief: M. Witzel, Harvard University), http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/--- New address:http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0901a.txt AUTHOR’S COPY The Soma-Haoma problem: Introductory overview and observations on the discussion[1] Jan E.M. Houben Je suis ivre d'avoir bu tout l'univers ... Écoutez mes chants d'universelle ivrognerie. Apollinaire, 1913 It is no sign of scientific honesty to attempt to claim for what is in reality a branch of historical research, a character of mathematical certainty. ... it is only the rawest recruit who expects mathematical precision where, from the nature of the case, we must be satisfied with approximative aimings. F. Max Müller, 1888, p. xiv. 1. Introduction Practically since the beginning of Indology and Iranology, scholars have been trying to identify the plant that plays a central role in Vedic and Avestan hymns and that is called Soma in the Veda and Haoma in the Avesta. What is the plant of which the Vedic poet says (ÙV 8.48.3)[2]: ápâma sómam am´ùtâ abhûma_áganma jyótir ávidâma dev‚ân | kíà nûnám asm‚ân kùñavad árâtiï kím u dhûrtír amùta mártyasya || "We just drank the Soma, we have become immortal, we have come to the light, we have found the gods. What can enmity do to us now, and what the mischief of a mortal, o immortal one?" And which plant is addressed by Zarathustra (Y 9.19-20) when he asks divine blessings such as "long life of vitality" (darë¤ô.jîtîm uõtânahe)[3][4], "the best world of the pious, shining and entirely glorious" (vahiõtëm ahûm a÷šaon m raocaÑhëm ą vîspô.xvârëϑëm), and requests to become "the vanquisher of J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 1 - hostility, the conqueror of the lie" ( baê÷šô.tauruu   drujëm.vanô)? 2.1. Early ideas and guesses on Soma and Haoma Already Abraham Rogerius, the 17th century missionary from Holland, was familiar with the word soma, as he writes in his Open Deure tot het Verborgen Heydendom (The open door to the hidden heathendom, 1651) that it means "moon" in the language which he calls "Samscortam" [5]. But it seems that it was only in the second half of the 18th century that Europeans started to gather more detailed informations about Vedic rituals, including the use of Soma (in the meaning of the plant and the inebriating drink created from it). In an abridged text of the Jesuit Father Coeurdoux which remained unpublished but which was apparently the unacknowledged basis of J.A. Dubois' well-known work on the customs, institutions and ceremonies of the peoples of India (Abbé 1825), we read that Soma is the name of a certain liqueur of which the sacrificer and the Brahmins have to drink at the occasion of a sacrifice ("Soma est le nom d'une certaine liqueur dont lui [= celui qui préside à la cérémonie, J.H.] et les autres Brahmes doivent boire en cette occasion", Murr 1987: 126). From Anquetil-Duperron (1771) [6] and Charles Wilkins (1785) [7] onward, the identity of the Avestan Haoma and of the Vedic Soma started to receive scholarly and scientific attention. In 1842, John Stevenson wrote in the preface to his translation of the Sâmaveda that in the preparation of a Soma ritual (somayâga) one should collect the "moon-plant". He identifies (p. IV) the plant as Sarcostemma viminalis. He moreover notes (p. X) that "[s]ince the English occupation of the Marátha country" the Somayâga was performed three times (viz., in Nasik, Pune and Sattara). In 1844, Eugène Burnouf observed in a study (p. 468) that the situation of the Avestan Haoma, the god whose name signifies both a plant and the juice pressed from it, is exactly parallel with the Soma of Vedic sacrifice. Windischmann (1846) discussed ritual and linguistic parallels between the Soma- and Haoma-cult in more detail. He reports (1846: 129) that Soma is known to be Sarcostemma viminalis, or Asclepias acida (the latter nowadays also known as Sarcostemma acidum Voigt), to which he attributes a narcotic-intoxicating ("narkotisch-berauschende") effect. J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 2 - 2.2. Soma-Haoma and the development of modern botany The botanical identity of Soma and Haoma became problematized in the second half of the nineteenth century in a time when botany was trying to cope with the challenges of various exotic, newly encountered floras. The use of the plant Sarcostemma brevistigma in recent Vedic sacrifices was acknowledged, but was this identical with the Soma which had inspired the ancient authors of the Vedic hymns? Max Müller expressed his doubts in an article published in 1855, in which he referred to a verse about Soma that appeared in a ritualistic commentary (Dhûrtasvâmin's commentary on the Âpastamba Årautasûtra) and that was itself allegedly quoted from an Ayurvedic source. Adalbert Kuhn 1859, being primarily interested in Indo- European mythological parallels, accepts Windischmann's conclusions that the Soma-Haoma was already current among the proto-Indo- Iranians before they split into a Vedic and Iranian group. He leaves open the possibility that only the mythology and outward appearance of the Soma and Haoma are similar while the plants may be different. In 1881 Roth discussed in an article, "Über den Soma", the nature of the plant that was used in modern times, the plant of olden times, the development in which the plant became rare and inaccessible to the Vedic people, and the admission and prescription of surrogates in later Vedic texts. He thinks it is likely that the ancient Soma was a Sarcostemma or a plant belonging, like the Sarcostemma, to the family of Asclepiadeae, but not the same kind as the one used in current sacrifices. Roth's article was the starting signal of a discussion by correspondence in an English weekly review of literature, art and science, The Academy of 1884-1885; apart from Roth and Müller botanists such as J.G. Baker and W.T. Thiselton-Dyer participated. Julius Eggeling (1885: xxiv ff) gave a brief report of this discussion, which later on appeared again in Max Müller's Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryans (1888: 222-242). From the title which Müller gives to the whole discussion, "The original home of the Soma", it is clear which aspect of the problem interests him most: the possible indication that the plant's identity might give about "the original home of the Aryans". Eggeling notices that an official inquiry is undertaken by Dr. Aitchison, "botanist to the Afghan Boundary Commission" (Eggeling 1885: xxiv). A few decades later, Hillebrandt (1927: 194ff) gives a more detailed report of the same discussion and adds references J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 3 - to a few later contributions to the Soma-Haoma problem. As in the case of Eggeling, Hillebrandt cannot reach a final conclusion regarding the identity of the plant Soma and Haoma in the ancient period. Suggestions noted by Hillebrandt vary from wine (Watt and Aitchison) and beer (Rajendra Lal Mitra) to Cannabis (B.L. Mukherjee).[8] In a footnote, Hillebrandt writes about a "Reisebrief aus Persien" by Bornmueller according to whom the "Soma-twig (also called Homa and Huma)" in the hand of a Parsi priest in Yesd could be immediately recognized as Ephedra. A few years earlier, Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, in his work on the "religious ceremonies and customs of the Parsees" (1922: 303, footnote 1), reported that "a few twigs of the Haoma plant used by the Indian Parsis in their ritual" were sent to Dr. Aitchison (spelled by Modi as Aitchinson) and identified by him as "twigs of the species Ephedra (Nat. order Gnetaceae)." Aitchison publishes his botanical descriptions of plants encountered at his trip through the "Afghan boundary" area in 1888. In the valley of the Hari-rud river he notices (1888: 111-112) the presence of several varieties of Ephedra, including one which he and a colleague are the first to determine, as well as the Ephedra pachyclada, of which he reports as "native names" Hum, Huma and Yehma.[9] Without committing himself to a candidate for the "real Soma plant", Oldenberg (1894: 177 and 366ff) argued that the Vedic Soma plant was a replacement of an earlier, Indo-European substance inebriating men and gods: mead, an alcoholic drink derived from honey. 2.3. Soma-Haoma, the biochemistry of plants, and human physiology At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, another strand starts to be woven in the Soma-Haoma discussion. An active substance of the Ephedra plant, the alkaloid ephedrine, was found in the chinese herb Ma Huang (Ephedra vulg.) in 1885 by Yamanashi. In 1887 and 1892, it was isolated from the plant by Nagai, who gave it the name ephedrine.[10] In World War I, ephedrin and a number of other alkaloids (quinine, strychnine, yohimbine and harmaline), were tested on a group of soldiers; it was found that ephedrine worked most strongly on muscle strength as well as on the will to overcome fatigue.[11] In his 1938 Lehrbuch der biologischen Heilmittel (Textbook of biological remedies), Gerhard Madaus (1938: 1259-1266) refers to a large number of studies on the effects, toxicity J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 4 - etc. of ephedrine appearing in German and American scientific journals, and notes their employment in the treatment of asthma and low bloodpressure. In the period between the two world wars, chemical substances (amphetamines) were explored which were close to ephedrine both in chemical structure and in physiological effects (Alles 1933, Fawcett and Busch 1998: 504). In World War II it was the amphetamines that were widely used on both sides. 2.4. A growing public for knowledge and experience of psychoactive substances A book that we may now call a textbook of psychoactive substances was published in 1924, with an enlarged edition in 1927: Louis Lewin's Phantastica: Die betäubenden und erregenden Genussmittel für Ärzte and Nichtärzte (Phantastica: narcotics and stimulants, for medical doctors and non-doctors). Having researched several of the plants (the mexican "mescal-button" cactus) and substances (e.g. cocaine) himself in the preceding decades, he gives detailed discussions of the uses and abuses of a wide range of narcotics, stimulants and popular remedies that were either available in Europe from all parts of the world or that had been studied abroad by ethnographers. He is aware (1927: 216) of the Soma-discussion, and of the main proposals, Periploca aphylla, Sarcostemma brevistigma and Ephedra vulgaris, which, however, he does not see as capable of "producing the effects described with regard to the Soma" ("Keine von diesen Pflanzen kann Wirkungen veranlassen, wie sie von dem Soma geschildert werden"). He rather thinks that it may have been a "strong alcoholic drink created by fermentation from a plant."[12] An English translation of Lewin's book was read by Aldous Huxley in 1931, and it inspired him to write Brave New World (1932), the satirical fiction of a state where, with an inversion of Marx' statement, "opium is the religion of the people". The "opium" in Huxley's novel is a chemical substance which he calls "Soma" and which, dependent on the dose, can bring someone a happy feeling, ego-transcending ecstasy, or a deep sleep like a "complete and absolute holiday" [13]. In a 1931 newspaper article in which he refers to his discovery of that "ponderous book by a German pharmacologist" (i.e., Lewin's 1927 "encyclopaedia of drugs"), Huxley says that "probably the ancient Hindus used alcohol to produce religious ecstasy" (in Huxley 1977: 4), a statement apparently deriving from Lewin's hasty and unconvincing suggestion for the identification of J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 5 - Soma with alcohol. The same book also informed him that "the Mexicans procured the beatific vision by eating a poisonous cactus" and that "a toadstool filled the Shamans of Siberia with enthusiasm and endowed them with the gift of tongues." In 1958: 99, however, Huxley mentions another plant as the possibly real Vedic Soma: "The original Soma, from which I took the name of this hypothetical drug, was an unknown plant (possibly Asclepias acida) used by the ancient Aryan invaders of India in one of the most solemn of their religious rites." His novel Island of 1963 gives a description of a more positive Utopian world in the form of a community that uses a drug not called Soma but "Moksha", and made out of "toadstools". It provides "the full-blown mystical experience."[14] 2.5. The main Soma-Haoma candidates until the 1960's In the meantime, indologists, ethnologists, botanists and pharmacologists had continued discussing and researching various candidates for the "real Soma-Haoma". The main plants discussed are Ephedra, Sarcostemma brevistigma, and Rhubarb. In the latter theory, defended e.g. by Stein 1931, the reddish juice of the plant is thought to be the basis of an alcoholic drink. In the introduction to his translation of the ninth Mañèala of the Ùgveda (Geldner 1951, vol. III), K.F. Geldner says that the Soma-plant "can only have been a kind of Ephedra." Geldner (1853-1929) worked on the translation of the ninth and tenth Mañèalas in the last years of his life. He justified his view by noting that a sample (apparently of a plant used in the Haoma- ceremony) given to him in Bombay by Parsi priests was identified as Ephedra by the renowned botanist O. Stapf; he also referred to a publication of Aitchison (Notes on Products of Western Afghanistan and North Eastern Persia, not available to me) and to Modi 1922: 303. In earlier publications such as the one on the Zoroastrian religion (1926) and his textbook on Vedism and Brahmanism (1928), Geldner had remained quite silent on the botanical identity of the Haoma-Soma, he only presented the two as identical. Geldner's German Ùgveda translation became widely available only several years after World War II, but then it became the scholarly standard translation for the next so many decades. 3.1. The fly agaric (Amanita muscaria): a new candidate presented, criticized and defended. J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 6 - An altogether new theory was launched by R. Gordon Wasson in a book that appeared in 1969.[15] Wasson (1898-1986) was an English banker as well as ethnobotanist and mycologist.[16] Together with his wife, he earlier published a book on "mushrooms in Russian history" in 1957. Wasson's 1969 book on a "mushroom of immortality" as the original Soma presents an impressive array of circumstantial evidence in the form of ethnographic and botanic data on the use of the Amanita muscaria ("fly-agaric") by isolated tribes in the far north-west of Siberia. In other words, what was literary fiction in Huxley's novel Island appears now as a scholarly hypothesis.[17] However, what should count as substantial evidence in Wasson's hypothesis remains utterly unconvincing. Wasson wants to take only the Ùgvedic hymns into account, from which he selects statements that would describe the Soma-plant. The hymns, however, are employed in the context of elaborate rituals and are generally directed to certain gods, e.g. Indra, Agni, Soma. The praises of the god contain references to mythological elements regarding his powers, feats and origination. To the extent that hymns to Soma contain references to concrete events – that is, to the extent they do not refer to cosmological themes or to microcosmic implications – these usually concern the ritual sphere. Wasson takes these references as detailed descriptions of the plant in its natural habitat, which is demonstrably incorrect. By isolating short phrases eclectically, Wasson does indeed succeed in collecting a number of statements which can be applied to the fly-agaric and its life cycle in nature. While the verses are apparently formulated so as to be suggestive of additional meanings (to allow interpretations concerning man and the cosmos), the immediate context of the isolated phrases usually make a link with the growing mushroom far fetched while the suitablility for the ritual context remains. Even if occasionally mention is made of the mountains as the place where the Soma grows, the hymns of the ninth book of the Ùgveda, which forms the main source of evidence for Wasson, deal with the Soma in the process of purification (pávamâna). As Brough observed in 1973: 22: "the Vedic priests were concentrating on the ritual situation, and on the plant, presumably in a dried state, at the time of the ritual pressing. It is thus improbable that the Vedic 'epithets and tropes' which Wasson believed reflected aspects of the striking beauty of the living plant were inspired in this way." [18] A number of reviews of Wasson's book appeared from the hand of anthropologists, botanists, writers, indologists, and J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 7 - historians of religion.[19] Those who were too hesitant in accepting Wasson's central thesis, Kuiper and Brough, received a rejoinder (Wasson 1970 and 1972a), where, however, we find repetitions of his earlier statements and more of the same but no indication that the problems pointed out by the reviewers were understood, let alone that these problems are convincingly addressed [20]. Separate mention is to be made of Part Two of Wasson's book (pp. 93- 147), which is written by indologist Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty and is entitled "The Post-Vedic History of the Soma Plant". This part is valuable for its discussion of researches on Soma and Haoma by Western scholars since the end of the eighteenth century to the time of her writing. The section on "the Brâhmañas and the Årauta-sûtras" (pp. 95-98), concerning a crucial episode in Soma's "post-vedic history" for which extensive material is available, is impressionistic and eclectic and hence defective [21], but in spite of this both Doniger O'Flaherty and Wasson refer to it in their attempt to prove the absence of direct knowledge of Soma in this period. Apart from its importance for the study of the use of the fly-agaric by tribes in distant North-East Siberia,[22] Wasson's book forms an undeniable landmark in the Soma-Haoma discussion. However, while initially he did receive more positive reactions to his central thesis from some indological reviewers (Bareau, Ingalls and Kramrisch), it hardly ever received full-fledged support from later indologists writing on the subject. One important point is however widely accepted: the Soma might very well have been a hallucinogen. The line of reasoning underlying the argument presented in Wasson 1969 was: in the light of the utterances of the Vedic authors, Soma cannot have been alcoholic, it must have been a hallucinogen.[23] In his review of Wasson 1969, Brough (1971: 360f) made an important observation. Quoting from Wasson's evidence on the consumption of fly-agaric among tribes in North-East Siberia, Brough points out that there are repeated references to coma induced by the fly-agaric. Those who consume the mushroom attain "an ecstatic stupor" or are transported into "a state of unconsciousness". Being "in a stupor from three sun-dried agarics" the hero of one of Wasson's sources "is unable to respond to the call to arms. But time passes and the urgency grows, and when the messengers press their appeal to throw off his stupor he finally calls for his arms." J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 8 - Brough rightly observes: "Here, it would seem, is a plant whose effects are totally unsuitable to stimulate Indra and human warriors for battle." In his answer to the problem indicated by Brough, Wasson sneers at Brough's self-admitted lack of specialist qualifications in chemistry and pharmacology and retorts (1972a: 15): "Wine as one of the Elements in the Mass is analogous. From earliest times (indeed since Noah's days!) wine has been known to cause nausea, vomiting, and coma; yet its sacramental rôle stands unchallenged." The situation is, however, not the same. The "ecstatic stupor" and "state of unconsciousness" appear in Wasson's anecdotes of the use of fly- agaric as quite regular effects appearing quite soon after the consumption of doses that according to the descriptions are the normal ones (cf. also Nyberg 1995: 391). In the case of wine normal consumption seems rather accompanied by a whole range of effects from exhileration to drowsiness, while "nausea, vomiting, and coma" befalls only those who consume it in great excess (or who drink bad wine). It is also striking that hallucinations and visions are reported in a considerable number of Wasson's Amonita muscaria anecdotes; they apparently occur quite soon after the consumption of the active substance of the mushrooms, and seem to be part of the experience actually sought by the consumer. Brough (1971: 361) draws attention to Ephedra, and to ephedrine isolated from Ephedra sinica (Ma Huang). Ephedrine, according to Brough, "is a powerful stimulant, and would thus be a more plausible preparation for warriors about to go into battle than the fly-agaric, which is a depressant." In Wasson's presentation the choice was between alcohol and a hallucinogen. In Brough's formulation we have to choose between a hallucinogen and a stimulant, whereas an alcoholic drink is for him not a suitable candidate for the substance causing the Vedic people to attain exhileration (máda). These seem to be the major options taken into consideration in the post-Wasson era of the Soma-Haoma discussion. In 1975 Frits Staal appended a discussion of the Soma-issue to his book on the exploration of mysticism. Staal is quite impressed by Wasson's argument (1975: 204: "his identification stands in splendid isolation as the only, and therefore the best, theory"). But he shows that he is not entirely unaware of its methodological shortcomings (1975: 202): "The only weakness that seems to be apparent for Wasson's theory is a J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 9 - certain unfalsifiability. A good theory should be liable to falsification. Theories which are true come what may and which can never be refuted by facts are uninformative, tautologous, or empty. In fact, apparent counterexamples to Wasson's theory can always be interpreted as consistent with the theory. When opponents point out, for example, that there are descriptions in the Veda which do not fit a mushroom, Wasson replies that the identity of the Soma was intentionally hidden by the Brahmans, or that these descriptions fit creepers or other substitutes." Staal thus saw that Wasson takes the Veda at once as the document on the basis of which the Soma can be identified as a mushroom, and as a testimony of concerted attempts of Brahmins to mystify and hide this identity: a very flexible employment indeed of a source taken as crucial evidence.[24] Staal here distinguishes between only two options for Soma, alcohol and a hallucinogen, thus neglecting the relevance of psychoactive substances which have a primarily stimulant and ecstasy promoting effect (without excluding the occurrence of hallucinations or visions). In his book on the Agnicayana ritual (1983, I: 106), he formulates his position with reference to Wasson's thesis as follows: "Wasson's thesis implies, but is not implied by, a weaker thesis, namely that the original Vedic Soma was a hallucinogenic plant [i.e., not necessarily a mushroom, J.H.]. I regard this as the most important part of Wasson's hypothesis ... " The restriction of possible psychoactive candidates to substances known as hallucinogens, however, is unjustified. A substitute for Soma mentioned in some of the ritual texts is Pûtˆka. The Pûtˆka is also one of the additives in the clay of the Pravargya pot – an object that is central in an esoteric, priestly ritual, the Pravargya (cf. van Buitenen 1968, Houben 1991 and 2000). In an article published in 1975 (later appearing as the third chapter in Wasson et al. 1986), Stella Kramrisch sought to prove that this Pûtˆka was a mushroom having psychotropic effects. According to her (1975: 230), "Pûtika [sic], the foremost, and possibly the only direct surrogate for Soma, is a mushroom. When the fly-agaric no longer was available, another mushroom became its substitute. ... The identification of Pûtika [sic], the Soma surrogate, supplies strong evidence that Soma indeed was a mushroom." Kramrisch' identification goes via the mushroom called Putka by the Santals in Eastern India. As Kuiper (1984) pointed out, the linguistic connection suggested by Kramrisch does not hold. J.E.M. Houben, Introduction Soma/Haoma, - 10 -