--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97@...>
wrote:
>
> > Original ritual *sauma was clearly ephedra, with or without
> > additional varying ingredients added.
>
> This is an excellent topic for further elaboration on myth-making
> by indologists.
That's simply a lie. Indologists, or at least those
that identified soma as ephedra, merely reported what
they found. The only modern day practicioners of
soma rituals who use the original substance are the
Zoroastrians, and they use ephedra. What hand could
any Indologist have ever had in making that so?
Reflexes of 'hauma' occur in several Iranian dialects,
all referring to one or another species of ephedra.
These dialects split long, long ago, and certainly
before any Indologist ever came along. I'm sure you
didn't know about any of this, but regardless, you
always fall back on your tired tactic of claiming any
inconvenient fact a myth produced by someone else with
an agenda. It's so laughable when your own agenda is
so transparent.
> Soma is not a myth; the writings about it by modern-day scholars
are
> attempts at creating a myth.
_Your_ myth about soma, that it was electrum, is the
most outrageous I've yet to see. Everyone who's been
on these lists with you for any amount of time well
knows of your zeal to prove primacy of place for
India in the area of metallurgy. This whole "soma
was electrum" nonsense has no other motivation than
that end. Not even the majority of your ideological
cronies on the I.C. list take your electrum theory
seriously.
> Soma is a commodity, purchased for a life-activity.
Says who besides you? All of the Indian and Iranian
texts say that it is the liquid extract of a plant or
plants and that it is literally drunk. Not a single
one gives any reason to believe it ever had anything
to do with metal. That's purely fantasy of your own
making.
> More on this, later, with particular reference to the semantics of
ams'u.
> And, if the list permits, about hom 'gold' and the rebus:
homa 'bison'.
The semantics of 'ams'u' is "filament; thread ; end of
a thread; a point, end; a ray, sunbeam". Throwing a
barrage of all the similar-looking but etymologically
unrelated words you can find in any Indian language with
semantics bent to your liking, won't change that fact.
> What are the etymological grounds for the faith that ams'u
means 'stalk'?
You remind me of Clinton with his "Define 'is'.".
David