Around five years ago, Indian politicians in the Rajya Sabha debated the association of alcohol with the gods. Their assumption, that alcohol is unholy and detested by Hindu gods, could not be further from the truth. In the past, a drink named Soma was served to the gods to intoxicate them. Soma itself was a god. In a religion where an intoxicating drink had a deity as its counterpart, seeing alcohol as unholy is ignorant at best.
There was an entire ritual to prepare Soma, known as the somayaga. Making the Soma required a ‘moon plant.’ In a paper titled Drinking habits in ancient India, authors O Somasundaram, D Vijaya Raghavan and AG Tejas Murthy trace the consumption of intoxicating substances in the Indian subcontinent and list the ‘references to the use of intoxicants’ found in the Vedas, the Great Epics, and the ancient Tamil literature. They describe how Soma was made:
The plant, collected by moonlight on the mountains, plucked up by the roots, is carried on a car drawn by two goats to the place of sacrifice; where a spot covered with grass and twigs is prepared, crushed between stones by the priests and is then thrown, stalks as well as juice, sprinkled with water, in a sieve of loose woolen weaving; whence, after the whole had been further pressed by hand, the juice trickles into a vessel or kettle which is placed beneath. The fluid is then mixed with sweet milk and sour milk or curds, with wheaten and other flour and brought into a state of fermentation; it is then offered thrice a day and partaken of by the Brahmins … it was unquestionably the greatest and holiest offering of the ancient Indian worship … the Gods drink of the offered beverage; they long for it; they are nourished by it and thrown into a joyous intoxication … the beverage is divine, it purifies, it is a water of life, gives health and immortality, prepares the way to Heaven, destroys enemies, etc., the fieriness of the drink, its exhilarating and inspiring properties, are especially expatiated upon. The chosen few who partake of it give most vivid expression to the state of exaltation, of intensified vitality, which raises them above the level of humanity.”
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