What is Soma rasa? Is it the name of an intoxicating beverage which the Aryans used ? Or, does the word have a spiritual and mystical meaning ? Soma, a key concept in the Vedic literature has a number of connotations, sometime based on analogies, as one may discern in the 9th book of the Rigveda and in the Samaveda. Soma is the Supreme Lord, vehicle of immortality, drop of life, supreme medicine and the elixir of gods. It is also viewed in the sense of friend, fame, ecstasy, affluence, etc. Soma is identified with all the deities with Agni, Apas, Indra, Brihaspati, Pushan, Aditi, Rudra, Varuna, Prajapati, et al. Soma is moon in the cosmic creation, and is present in all herbs. As a plant par excellence classified into 24 species, it grows on the Mujavat, Arbuda, Sahya, Mahendra, the Himâlaya and other mountains. For the purpose of juice (rasa) in sacrificial rites, it is pounded with stones or in a mortar, and then cleaned and processed. As an oblation (havih) in yajña it goes to Indra who in the metaphysical sense, is the resplendent Self, 'the soul who drinks Soma' shooting forth from the anandamaya and vijnanmaya sheaths of the subtle body. The ambrosia of Soma is fermented and distilled in the inner consciousness of one's self. Says the Samaveda Come O strong and courageous resplendent self, spiritual elixir has been pressed out for you. May you be filled with spiritual vigour as the sun fills the sky with its rays.'    

Soma-rasa, 'the conceptual beverage of gods' is not to be equated with sura (alcoholic beverage) as explained in the Œatapatha Brahmana (VI. 1.3.10). Swami Satya Prakasha Saraswati and Satyakam Vidyalankar observe in their Introduction to the Saamaveda:

Drinking-rites for the goodwill of gods, for social celebration, or in honour of the dead, have no sanction in the Vedas and the mainstream texts of the Hindus. References to the prohibition of wine occur in the Dharamasutra literature of Apastambha (1.25.3), Gautama (23.1), Bodhayana (2.1.18,19,21), Vasistha (20.19,22), Yajnavalkya and others. The Manu Smrti (XI.93) likens wine, the dross secreted from food-grains, to impure substance (mala) and prohibits both brahmins and kshatriyas from drinking it. It describes wine, meat and fermented beverages as the food of yakna, rakshasa and pisacha category of beings (XI.95). It further says that the brahminhood of a brahmin instantly goes when he takes wine and he becomes a œudra (XI.97). As an expiatory rite, Visnu Smrti (51.1) prohibits a drinker of wine to abstain from all religious rites and subsist on grains un-separated from the husk for one year. Wines distilled from sugar, from the blossom of madhuka (mahua; Madhuka indica) or from flour are specifically disallowed to the twice-born. Intoxicating beverages which are a taboo for the Brahmins, but not so for the Ksatriya or Vaishys (if taken in moderation), are those which have been distilled from the madhuka flowers, molasses, jujube fruit, dates, bread-fruit, honey, sap of coconut tree, etc. (Visnu Smrti, 22.82).