Vedic Mythology c5.s3.t4.34

c5.s3.t4.34

Hillebrandt, however, in his Vedische Mythologie not only claims this identification for a number of other passages in the RV., but asserts that in the whole of the ninth book Soma is the moon (p. 309) and nowhere the ordinary plant (p. 326), the ninth book in fact being a book of hymns to the moon⁶⁶. Soma, he maintains, means, in the earliest as well as the latest parts of the whole RV., only the Soma plant or juice on the one hand, and, as a deity, only the moon on the other (pp. 274. 340. 450). According to his view, the moon is a receptacle of Soma or *amṛta* and is the god whom the worshipper means when he presses the draught, which is part of the lunar ambrosia. Hillebrandt goes even further than this complete identification of Soma and the moon in the RV. He also asserts that the moon-god as Soma forms the centre of Vedic belief and cult (p. 277), being the creator and ruler of the world much more than the sun (p. 313), while Indra is the most popular Vedic god only next to the moon⁶⁷ (p. 315).