Soma, electrum R.gvedic Soma as a metallurgical allegory; soma, electrum is deified ABSTRACT Gods in the Rigveda are an allegorical personification of the purification processes (of Soma), just as Soma is an a_pri deity, together with other materials and apparatus (ladles and vessels) employed in the yajn~a, accompanied by r.cas (or, agnis.t.oma). If Soma is electrum and Indra is burning embers (such as charcoal, indha, used in a furnace), the yajn~a can be interpreted, at the material level, as a process of reduction (or, pavitram, purification), using ks.a_ra, of a metallic ore compound (ma_ks.ika_ or quartz or pyrites) to yield the shining metals: potable (pavama_na, rasa-- raso vajrah, cf. RV 9.048.03, i.e. rasa, vigorous as a thunderbolt) gold and silver (hiran.yam and rayi), after oxidising the baser metallic elements (in the unrefined pyrite ores) such as lead (na_ga or ahi or vr.tra) and copper (s'ulba). Reducing agents include alkaline as well as combustible materials --vegetable and animal products-- such as: herbs (ks.a_ra), barley--grains and cooked pin.d.a, milk, curds, clarified butter, viands (animal fat), bones (used in cupellation processes, and for making crucibles, during the bronze-age), sheep's hair or wool (reminisced as golden fleece). For e.g., Soma is described as parvata_ vr.dhah in a verse, that the pyrites are from the mountain slopes: 9.046.01 Begotten by the stones the flowing (Soma-juices) are effused for the banquet of the gods' active horses. [Begotten by the stones: or, growing on the mountain slopes]. The exchange value of gold and silver in Vedic times, is elaborated in metaphorical terms related to wealth and lineage: such as food, cattle, rain; progeny. The vedi (altar) is the earth and as the agni (fire) raises towards the heaven, the poetic imagination of the r.s.is (priests) expands into realms of cosmological thoughts, unparalleled in recorded history of early human civilizations. Thus, at a cosmic level, the Rigveda raises profound philosophical questions which have been the fountain-head of Indian philosophical traditions. In such a perspective, the entire Rigveda can be viewed as an allegory, the human quest for achieving material which has exchange value, in transcending the material level to realms of philosophical explorations, and in expanding the semantic and morphological limits of language to attain new insights into the very concept of 'meaning', using language, through metrical, chanted mantras, as a means of understanding the a_tman and the parama_tman, thereby, attaining svarga, or bliss. All the su_ktas are thus, governed by a framework of four principal metaphors, rendered in scintillating, ecstatic, spiritual poetic resonance : word, prayer, gods, material well-being. A precis of this framework may be seen from the following selections: 9.063.25 The brilliant purified Soma-juices are let fall amidst all praises. 9.063.27 The purified (juices) are poured forth from heaven and from the firmament upon the summit of the ground. [The summit of the ground: i.e., the raised place, the place of divine sacrifice, or yajn~a]. pv?mana As&]t/ saema>? zu/³as/ #Nd?v> , A/i- ivña?in/ kaVya? . pv?mana id/vs! py!rœ A/Ntir?]adœ As&]t , Page 1 Soma, electrum p&/iw/Vya Aix/ san?iv . Adapted from Haug's notes from Sa_yan.a's commentary on Aitareya Bra_hman.a: Soma Process. The adhvaryu takes the skin (carma or tvac) and puts on it the filaments or shoots of the Soma (am.s'u). He then takes two boards (adhis.avan.a), puts one on top of the Soma shoots, and beats them with the stones (gra_va_n.a). Then the Soma is put between the two boards, and water is poured on them from the vasati_vari_ pot. Soma is then shaken in the hota_ cup (camasa), wetted again with vasati_vari_ water and put on a stone. Grass is laid on them, and they are beaten so that the juice runs out. The juice is allowed to run into the trough (a_havani_ya), then strained through the cloth (pavitra or das'a_pavitra) which is held by the udgata_. The filtered soma is caught in another trough (pu_tabhr.t). Libations are poured from two kinds of vessels: grahas or saucers, and camasas or cups. SUMMARY: SNAPSHOTS OF THE ARGUMENT King Croesus of Lydia ca. 546-510 BC. Electrum Siglos Electrum is a gold-silver alloy containing 20 to 45 percent silver. It varies from pale yellow to silver white in colour and is usually associated with silver sulfide mineral deposits Leaf formation on gold from the Mother Lode, Nevada county, California By courtesy of Demuth Collection; photograph, Mary A. Root http://www.britannica.com/seo/g/gold h Gold-in-quartz from Idaho Spring's Humboldt Mine. Specimen is 5.0 inches long. Page 2 Soma, electrum http://home.hiwaay.net/~dddorf/gnm/gnm.cgi?quartz su/;u/Pva&lts</ n in\R?terœ %/pSwe/ sUy¡/ n d?öa/ tm?is i]/yNt?m! , zu/-e é/Km< n d?zR/t< inoa?t/m! %dœ ^?pwurœ Aiñna/ vNd?nay . RV 1.117.05 You extricated, Dasras, the sage (Vandana_) cast into a well, like a handsome and splendid ornament designed for embellishment, and (lying) As'vins, like one sleeping on the lap of the earth or like the sun disappearing in darkness. Rukma is a golden chain or disk. Gold is won from the earth, washed and cleaned and purified (RV. I.117.5). (cf. M.N. Banerjee, "On Metals and Metallurgy in Ancient India, Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol. III, March 1927, no. 1, p. 123). Agatharcides (2nd century BC) describes how in Egypt gold-bearing ore was found and washed until more or less pure gold dust remained. This dust was put "into earthen pots. They mix with this a lump of lead according to the mass, lumps of salt, a little tin and barley bran. They put on a closely-fitting lid carefully smearing it with mud and heat it in a furnace for five days and nights continuously; then they allow the pots to cool and find no residual impurities in them; the gold they recover in a pure state with little wastage. This processing of gold is carried on round about the most distant boundaries of Egypt." (Healy 1978, 154) "The procedure was tested in 1974 (Notton 1974) with an alloy of copper and silver containing 37.5% of gold. It was found that heating the pots filled with the alloy and salt gave the highest gold recovery rate of 93%. Including tin, lead or charcoal reduced the efficienty to less than 80%. Healy concluded that the account given by Agatharcides 'seems to be an example of the conflation of at least two processes' (154)..Arthas'a_stra mentions salt among the articles necessary for purifying gold: KA 02.14.23 mu_kamu_s.a_ pu_tikit.t.ah karat.ukamukham na_li_ sam.dam.s'o jon:gani_ suvarcika_lavan.am tad eva suvarn.am ity apasa_ran.ama_rga_h".(Diodorus--III,14,3-4; loc. cit. Harry Falk, Refining gold in ancient India : ad JUB 3.17,3 in: Acta Orientalia 1997: 58, 47-51 Barley husks would burn away and the base metals oxidized and absorbed by the crucible (silver is converted to silver chloride by the salt.) (R.J. Forbes, in: Singer et al., A History of Technology, 1954, pp. 573-587). Sumerian literary texts (ca. 3rd millennium BC) refer to gold from Aratta (Pettinato 1972: 79). Gudea records receiving gold from the mountain of Hah(h)um (Statue B. col. VI. 33-5; Liverani 1988), taken to lie in that part of modern Turkey near Samsat on the Upper Euphrates, and from Meluhha. In the third millennium Sumerian texts list copper among the raw materials reaching Uruk from Aratta (Pettinato 1972: 82-3, 128) and all three of the regions Magan, Meluhha and Dilmun are associated with copper, but the latter only as an emporium (Limet 1960: 85ff.; Waetzoldt 1981). Alchemical tradition is documented in a text dated to the mid-second millennium BC in Mesopotamia; this is Page 3 Soma, electrum reminiscent of the Rigvedic agnis.t.oma which lasts for days and nights! "For 5 shekels of pappardillu stone you mix one-third mina of mountain honey, 10 shekels of TA, one su_tu of milk, 4 shekels of red alkali and one-half sila of wine...You test on glowing charcoal... you pour into a stone bowl of algamis'u-stone (steatite)...lute with dough...you heat it for a full day on a smokeless fire. You take out and..for five days, it is (not?) reliable. You soak it in (liquid)...You boil alum and...in vinegar. You steep (the stone) in lapis lazuli-coloured liquid and place it in the fire...Property of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon." (Text 1, Bab. K. 713; A. Leo Oppenheim, RA, 60, 1966, pp. 29-45). Cha_ndogya Upanis.ad (5.10.4): es.a somo ra_ja_. tad deva_na_m annam.tam deva_ bhaks.yanti (Soma is king, Soma is food for the gods, Gods eat Soma). RV 10.85.3-4 [somam manyate papiva_n yat sampim.s.anty os.adhim somam yam brahma_n.o vidurna tasya_s'na_ti kas'cana RV 10.85.3 (AV 14.1.3): he thinks that he has drunk Soma when they grind the herbs together; of the soma which the Bra_hman.as know, none whatsoever partakes] distinguishes between the Soma that the priests know and that which they process. Soma is a product, it was traded in Vedic times and offered to the gods.