Volume 155, Issue 1, 8 August 2014, Pages 373–386
Soma, food of the immortals according to the Bower Manuscript (Kashmir, 6th century A.D.) ☆
Abstract
Ethnopharmacological relevance
Food
is medicine and vice versa. In Hindu and Ayurvedic medicine, and among
human cultures of the Indian subcontinent in general, the perception of
the food-medicine continuum is especially well established. The
preparation of the exhilarating, gold-coloured Soma, Amrita or Ambrosia,
the elixir and food of the ‘immortals’–the Hindu pantheon–by the
ancient Indo-Aryans, is described in the Rigveda in poetic hymns.
Different theories regarding the botanical identity of Soma circulate,
but no pharmacologically and historically convincing theory exists to
date. We intend to contribute to the botanical, chemical and
pharmacological characterisation of Soma through an analysis of two
historical Amrita recipes recorded in the Bower Manuscript. The recipes
are referred therein as panaceas (clarified butter) and also as a
medicine to treat nervous diseases (oil), while no exhilarating
properties are mentioned. Notwithstanding this, we hypothesise, that
these recipes are related to the ca. 1800 years older Rigvedic Soma. We
suppose that the psychoactive Soma ingredient(s) are among the
components, possibly in smaller proportions, of the Amrita recipes
preserved in the Bower Manuscript.
Materials and methods
The
Bower Manuscript is a medical treatise recorded in the 6th century A.D.
in Sanskrit on birch bark leaves, probably by Buddhist monks, and
unearthed towards the end of the 19th century in Chinese Turkestan. We
analysed two Amrita recipes from the Bower Manuscript, which was
translated by Rudolf Hoernle into English during the early 20th century.
A database search with the updated Latin binomials of the herbal
ingredients was used to gather quantitative phytochemical and
pharmacological information.
