Chandra

Chandra, also known as Soma, Indu, Atrisuta, Sachihna, Taradhipa and Nishakara, is the Hindu lunar deity. He is also one of the nine planets (Navagraha) and guardians of the directions (Dikpala) in Hinduism.

Quotes

• Flow on Soma as wealth from four oceans to us, a thousandfold and from every side
  • Rigveda IX.33.6
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Flow on Soma as peace for us, draw out for our milk an ambrosial juice, and increase the ocean of the hymn.
  • Rigveda IX.61.15
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Forming the ray from Heaven, you flow through all forms. Soma, as the ocean you overflow. Soma, beloved enter the ocean.
  • Rigveda IX.64.8,17,27
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• To the ocean the Soma drops, like cows to their home, have come to the source of truth.
  • Rigveda IX.66.12
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Soma stirs the ocean with the winds.
  • RV IX.84.4
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• The king of the river plunges into the sea, lodged in the rivers, he holds to the wave of the waters.
  • RV IX.86.8
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Soma, as the ecstatic, you were the first to extend the ocean for the Gods.
  • RV IX.107.23
  • Quoted in Frawley, David. The Rig Veda and the History of India. (2001). Quoted from Frawley, D. The Hindu, 25th June 2002. WITZEL’S VANISHING OCEAN – HOW TO READ VEDIC TEXTS ANY WAY YOU LIKE. A Reply to Michael Witzel’s article “A Maritime Rigveda? How not to read the Ancient Texts”.

• Iravathan Mahadevan proposes that “the mysterious cult object that you find before the unicorn on the unicorn seals is a filter. (…) Since we know that the unicorn seals were the most popular ones, and every unicorn has this cult object before it, whatever it represents must be part of the central religious ritual of the Harappan religion. We know of one religion whose central religious cult [object] was a filter, that is the soma [cult] of the Indo-Aryans.”131 If this is not an argument for the identity of Vedic and Harappan, I don’t know what is. Yet, Mahadevan dismisses this conclusion citing the well-known arguments that the Vedas know of no cities while Harappa had no horses, so “the only other possibility is that a soma-like cult (…) must have existed in Harappa and that it was taken over by the Indo-Iranians and incoming Indo-Aryans.”
  • Iravatham Mahadevan interviewed by Omar Khan, Chennai, 17-11998,, quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.