Gods needed soma

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Gods needed soma

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1sadcom
jun 14, 2018, 3:30 pm

Hello. This is my first post here. I joined this forum searching for an advice. Please, feel free to bash my ideas, it will only be helpful. Or, maybe, I am trying to crush through the open door. Since I am not a mythologist, I am not aware if the consensus on "if gods needed soma for their immortality" has been reached already.

Any religion is always linked to some God or Gods... Gods have to be immortal. Were they immortal by their nature? Maybe some, but not all! Not the ones that were described in Mesopotamian/Akkaddian/Babylonian/Assyrian myths.

I am basing my chain of thoughts on the only two primary sources that dealt with soma. If you know of any others, please, please, point me in their direction and I will be eternally thankful.
"Rig Vedas IX" goes full steam into the description of how soma juice was filtered, but have scanty description of the plant itself and it keeps completely mum on what happened to other parts of the plant after the juice was filtered out. Unless, this was just a godly entertainment (recreational usage), Gods needed to ingest that juice for a reason.

"Gilgamesh" explains that semi-gods did not have a birth right to ingest soma and thus remained mortal. The hero has to go to the underworld of Mesoamerica (known locally as Xibalba) in order to procure the plant. Alas, snake sneaks in and steals the plant from Gilgamesh. All we are left with is a description of the plant as long spindly/spiky underwater growing stems...

"Myth of Adapa" could be one secondary source. It implied that the drink offered to Adapa was the fabled soma... And the dude never took it :(

Of course, these myths were a product of Indo-Aryan and Mesopotamian folklore. The time difference between them must be enormous. Thousands of years? For immortal Gods it would not be a problem to bridge the gap, when they are able to extend their lifetimes indefinitely. It would also make sense that Central American gods were of the same brood. They would also need a juice of soma to survive. Unfortunately, "Popol Vuh" never mention anything about it and I didn't find any other primary myths that did...

Thank you.
sadcom

2stellarexplorer
Bewerkt: jun 14, 2018, 3:46 pm

I’m confused about the statement “The hero has to go to the underworld of Mesoamerica (known locally as Xibalba) in order to procure the plant.” What? Mesopotamians would have had no knowledge of Mesoamerica.

If you don’t find what you are looking for here, I would suggest posting it in the Ancient History group, where many people are likely to be be familiar with relevant ancient Near Eastern texts.