--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:> 14-12-03 00:14, S.Kalyanaraman
wrote:>> > Soma, hauma are attested.
> > > > This was a commodity, a product (since soma was purchased in
> > cartloads). Are there cognates in other IE languages?
> > > > What could be *IE?
>
> Skt. soma-, Av. haoma-, etc. < Proto-Indo-Iranian *sáuma-, a
derivative > of {su-} as in Skt. sunoti '(he) presses'. The root
*seu- 'press out, > extract liquid' is IE with a number of cognates
outside IIr. (cf. Gk. > huei 'it rains'), and *sóu-mo-s is an
expected derivative meaning 'that > whis is pressed out, juice' (it
could of course be applied metonymically > to a juice-giving plant).
Thanks, Piotr.
It could also be applied metonymically to a potable 'rasa', molten
metal.
In Tamil, veda-iyal means 'alchemy' (the chemistry of vedi, the fire-
altar).
In Samskr.tam, rasa_yana is the word for 'chemistry' and early rasa
va_da meant 'transformation of base metals into gold'. Hence, the
compound: soma-rasa.