Journeys into Vedic Thought
Long-form, researched essays on the deities, language, ritual and history of the Rig Veda. All free to read.
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Green Mouths and Singing Stones: Inside the Rigveda's Soma Workshop
Most writing about soma asks what the plant was. Ask instead how it was made, and a Bronze Age workshop appears: stalks bought off a cart, stones with green mouths, pits dug in the ground to amplify the noise, and a fleece filter that turned a juice into a god.
The Soma Problem: What Did the Vedic Poets Actually Drink?
Mandala 9 of the Rigveda devotes 114 hymns to a single plant pressed, filtered and drunk at sacrifice. For over a century scholars have tried to identify it. The candidates include a psychoactive mushroom, a harmal shrub, ephedra, and cannabis. The hymns themselves may be the best evidence we have.
Soma: The Divine Plant of the Rig Veda — The 130-Year Identification Debate
What was Soma? The Rig Veda devotes an entire Mandala to it, but we no longer know what plant it was. A survey of the major candidates — from R. Gordon Wasson's Amanita muscaria to modern ephedra theories.