SOMA: Lotus and the Hidden Elixirs of the Himalayas

“We have drunk Soma; we have become immortal; we have gone to the light; we have found the gods.”¹

For more than three thousand years, this blazing line from the Rigveda has challenged scholars and seekers alike. What was Soma? A single plant? A mushroom? A desert shrub? Or something more elusive—a ritual elixir hiding in plain sight within India’s most radiant symbol? This essay explores a compelling possibility: that the lotus—its flowers, seeds, and rhizomes—stood at the center of a carefully pressed and praised mixture, completed by hardy Himalayan shrubs, to yield the fearless clarity and immortal light the hymns proclaim.² ³

1. The Lotus Hypothesis

The lotus (blue and white Nymphaea; sacred Nelumbo) is India’s emblem of unstained rising and awakening.³ Beyond symbol, it offers a practical triad: flowers with aporphine/nuciferine (gentle euphoria, lucid reverie), seeds with nutritive/medicinal value (steadiness, stamina), and rhizomes (starchy body; a grounding, fermentable base).⁴ ⁵ ⁶ As a ritual cornerstone, lotus can furnish vision, nourishment, and stability—attributes the poets repeatedly braid into Soma’s praise.²

2. Woody Shrubs as Co-Actors

The hymns linger on Soma’s pressing, filtering, and invigorating effects.² To round the lotus profile, Himalayan shrubs bring tone and lift:

  • Sarcostemma acidum (Somalātā): a leafless, latex-rich vine still ritually pressed in Somayāga.⁷

  • Peganum harmala: harmala alkaloids (MAOI) that amplify and add an ecstatic edge.⁸

  • Rhodiola rosea: adaptogenic clarity and stamina, especially at altitude.⁹

  • Astragalus membranaceus: immune and recovery support, a steadying tonic.¹⁰

3. Possible Combinations of Lotus and Woody Shrubs

3.1 Lotus + Sarcostemma

Pressed lotus flowers and seeds with Sarcostemma latex can produce a vivid, purifying yet energizing drink that fits the Vedic pressing-and-filtering choreography.⁷

3.2 Lotus + Peganum harmala

Peganum’s harmala alkaloids can potentiate lotus’ psychoactives, deepening visionary clarity toward the ecstatic, fearless states celebrated in RV 8.48.¹ ⁸

3.3 Lotus + Rhodiola + Astragalus

Lotus supplies the visionary center; Rhodiola contributes courage and mental crispness; Astragalus adds staying power—an all-day tonic Soma aligned with vigor and fearless action.⁹ ¹⁰

3.4 Six Lotus Proposal: Lotus (Flower + Seed + Rhizome) + Rhodiola + Peganum harmala

Six Lotus proposes this specific combination as a serious candidate for the ancient Soma and is actively researching it.

Lotus flowers offer lucid euphoria; seeds steady and nourish; rhizomes provide body and fermentable substrate; Rhodiola adds altitude clarity and stamina; Peganum gently amplifies the whole. The result is a drink that is lucid yet expansive, nourishing yet exalting—a credible match for hymns that speak of invulnerability and light.¹ ²

4. The Textual Fit

Soma, say the poets, is:

  • Immortalizing: “Place me in that immortal, imperishable world… there make me immortal.”²

  • Fear-banishing: “What can hostility do to us now…?”¹

  • Truth-linked light: purified by pressing and praise, aligned with boundlessness.²

A lotus-centered mixture, tuned by shrubs, neatly spans these claims: vision + courage + clarity.

5. Lotus in Buddhist Nectar Traditions

As Vedic Soma recedes, its nectar reappears in Buddhist amṛta and Tibetan dütsi/bcud len: consecrated elixirs that heal, vitalize, and “death-proof” the heart-mind.¹² ¹³ Lotus persists here both symbolically and materially (petals, seeds), carrying the “nectar” thread from Vedic fire altars to tantric bowls.

6. Conclusion: Lotus as Soma’s Hidden Core

Across deserts, mountains, and manuscripts, many candidates miss what the hymns hold together. Lotus does not. Its flowers, seeds, and rhizomes naturally combine vision, nourishment, and stability. Paired with Rhodiola and Peganum harmala, it can plausibly yield the luminous, fearless clarity the Vedas extol.

Six Lotus therefore proposes that this combination be taken seriously. Our ongoing research will continue to explore its plausibility, and future findings will be shared to deepen understanding. Far from being a relic of the past, Soma may yet prove to be a living bridge—uniting ancient vision with modern discovery. Like the lotus itself, it rises unstained from the depths, opening its petals toward the light. In this way, the mystery of Soma is not fading into history but flowering anew—an invitation to remember, to restore, and to awaken.

7. Soma as a Flexible Tradition of Mixtures

Soma may never have been a single plant but a ritual family of mixtures, adapted to landscape and season. In one valley, Sarcostemma provided the pressable core; elsewhere, lotus parts added vision and nourishment; in another, Peganum or Rhodiola fine-tuned courage, clarity, and lift.⁷ ⁸ ⁹ What unified the tradition was the process—cutting, pressing, filtering, praising—and the shared effect profile: fearlessness, light, and truth-clarity.¹ ²

Seen this way, textual puzzles soften. Plants that fit some criteria (pressability, tonic vigor, visionary clarity) but not others (exact alkaloid profile, local ecology) likely reflect partial substitutions across geography.¹¹ Just as Buddhist amṛta diversified while keeping its essence,¹² ¹³ Soma may have lived as a portable pharmaco-ritual archetype—rooted in different floras, converging on the same nectar of light.

8. Comparative Assessment

The strongest lead today is a Sarcostemma-centered blend still ritually pressed in Vedic sacrifice. Fresh, milky, and built for pounding stones and wool filters, Sarcostemma supplies the liturgical core; Peganum adds ecstatic fire; Rhodiola brings altitude clarity and stamina—pushing plausibility to the neighborhood of ~50%, using AI. Close, also, are: Sarcostemma + Peganum + Rhodiola + Astragalus (endurance), or a simpler Peganum + Rhodiola pairing using a pressable vine as the ritual vehicle. These Himalayan combinations capture the exhilaration, fearlessness, and light of the hymns more convincingly than most rivals—hinting that Soma may still breathe in the mountains, waiting to be remembered.

9. Research Note — Six Lotus Proposal on Soma

Six Lotus proposes that the combination of lotus flowers, lotus seeds, lotus rhizomes, Rhodiola rosea, and Peganum harmala deserves to be taken seriously as a potential candidate for the ancient Soma.

Based on current textual, symbolic, and pharmacological analysis, we estimate the plausibility of this combination at 25–35%—placing it among the strongest hypotheses yet proposed. While definitive proof may remain elusive, the lotus-centered blend aligns strikingly with the Rigvedic attributes of Soma: clarity, fearlessness, nourishment, and immortalizing vision.

This hypothesis is not a final solution but an invitation to inquiry. Ongoing Six Lotus research will continue to test effects, ritual plausibility, and symbolic resonance, with updates shared as they emerge—so that the lotus may yet unfold as the key to one of the world’s oldest mysteries.

Endnotes

  1. Rigveda 8.48.3, trans. Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), vol. II, 1129.

  2. Rigveda Book IX (Soma Maṇḍala), esp. IX.113, in Jamison & Brereton, Rigveda, vol. III.

  3. Stella Kramrisch, The Hindu Temple (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1946), 143–150.

  4. L. Emboden, “Nymphaea and Nymphaeaceae: A Review of Their Ethnobotany and Chemistry,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 3 (1981): 205–223.

  5. A. Mukherjee et al., “Lotus Seeds in Ayurveda and Modern Medicine,” Pharmacognosy Reviews 10, no. 19 (2016): 22–28.

  6. P. Sridhar and V. B. Rao, “Nutritional Composition of Lotus Rhizomes,” Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 46 (1994): 173–178.

  7. B. R. Divya, “Scientific Study of Soma and Its Use in Rituals of Somayajna,” International Journal of Scientific Study (2016).

  8. David Flattery and Martin Schwartz, Haoma and Harmaline: The Botanical Identity of the Indo-Iranian Sacred Hallucinogen “Soma” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

  9. G. Panossian and H. Wagner, “Rhodiola rosea: A Phytomedicinal Overview,” HerbalGram 56 (2002): 40–52.

  10. L. Auyeung et al., “Astragalus membranaceus in Immunomodulation,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 136 (2011): 353–366.

  11. Jan E. M. Houben, “The Soma–Haoma Problem: Introductory Overview and Observations on the Discussion,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 9, no. 1 (2003): 3–44.

  12. Matthew T. Kapstein, The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 212–214.

  13. Barbara Gerke, “Treating Essence with Essence: Re-inventing bcud len as Vitality Extraction in Contemporary Tibetan Medicine,” Asian Medicine 7, no. 1 (2012): 55–79.