BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
SOMA BROUGHT UP-TO-DATE* 
R. GORDON WASSON 
Already a decade has passed since the publication of 
the English edition of our SOMA: Divine Mushroom of 
Immortality. SOMA first made its bow to the world in an 
expensive de luxe format. That edition is exhausted and 
copies are quoted in the auction markets for rare books at 
a considerable advance in price. The hard cover edition is 
also exhausted. Of the paperback edition there has beena 
succession of printings. It sells steadily, especially in 
university centers of the English-speaking world. 
When I undertook to study the Soma enigma, I ap- 
proached it from outside the Sanskrit discipline, from 
ethnobotany. After all, if a plant is to be identified, why 
not turn to botany? And if the plant, when its juice was 
ingested, inspired its devotees with glowing rapture and 
adoration, why not have recourse to someone conversant 
with plant hallucinogens? The West has known the 
RgVeda for more than a century. The Vedists have failed 
to identify the Soma plant, if indeed they ever made any 
effort to do so: of such effort I have found no serious 
trace, however strange this may seem to non-Vedists. 
Naturally I needed a Vedist to work with me. My first 
stroke of good fortune was to win the enthusiastic cooper- 
ation of a young and brilliant Sanskrit scholar, Wendy 
Doniger O’ Flaherty, who holds doctorates in Sanskrit and 
Indian Studies from Harvard and Oxford Universities and 
*Also will appear in the Journal of the American Oriental Society 99: 1979. 
Published monthly except during July and ‘August by the Botanical Museum, Harvard University, 
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Printed by Harvard University Printing Office. Subscription: 
$25.00 a year, net, postpaid. Orders should be directed to Secretary of Publications at the above 
address. Second-Class Postage Paid at Boston, Mass. 
