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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 807 of 1027

Mandala 9: HYMN LXXXIV. Soma Pavamana.

1.FLOW, cheering Gods, most active, winner of the flood, for Indra, and for Vāyu, and for Varuṇa. Bestow on us to-day wide room with happiness, and in tbine ample dwelling laud the Host of Heaven.

2.He who hath come anear to creatures that have life, Immortal Soma flows onward to all of them. Effecting, for our aid, both union and release, Indu, like Sūrya, follows closely after Dawn.

3.He who is poured with milk, he who within the plants hastes bringing treasure for the happiness of Gods, He, poured forth in a stream flows with the lightning’s flash, Soma who gladdens Indra and the Host of Heaven.

4.Winner of thousands, he, this Soma, flows along, raising a vigorous voice that wakens with the dawn. Indu with winds drives on the ocean of the air, he sinks within the jars, he rests in Indra’s heart.

5.The kine with milk dress him who makes the milk increase, Soma, amid the songs, who finds the light of heaven. Winner of wealth, the effectual juice is flowing on, Singer and Sage by wisdom, dear as heaven itself.

Asked of Guide

Why is Soma called both a drink poured with milk and a cosmic, sunlike presence here?

The hymn treats Soma as a ritual beverage and a living cosmic force: the priest pours Soma ‘‘with milk’’ into jars while the verses call him ‘‘Immortal’’ and say he ‘‘follows closely after Dawn,’’ linking the poured juice to celestial motion. This double image means the sacrament is an embodied mediator—when poured it becomes a vehicle of ‘‘union and release’’ that enlivens Indra and the ‘‘Host of Heaven.’

This pairing echoes ideas in the Upanishads where ritual acts reveal metaphysical truths; like the Brihadaranyaka’s claim that sacrament and Self interpenetrate, the Rigveda presents Soma’s material pouring and his sunlike course as one active presence binding humans and gods.

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