Was Soma Forbidden by the Buddha?

[srkris]

You claimed there was a majority opinion, now miraculously it’s become a consensus - those two are not the same things. So I don’t see your arguments as being consistent. If scholars claim there is a consensus (not the case, to my knowledge, on this conclusion), please produce their words to that effect.

A majority of scholars voting for one theory (again not the case here, to my knowledge) does not make it the best theory there is, nor does it even make it a consensus. Not all scholars are (or can be) by definition, equally highly educated, or have equally high-level expertise.

The opinion and arguments of one very highly educated specialist scholar is almost always more valuable and reliable than the average of opinions of a motley crowd (of so-called scholars). Therefore appeal to the wisdom of such an unspecified motley crowd of scholars (and imagining a consensus exists - when there is none) is generally indicative of a poor argument.

Presumably you missed the significance of the following paragraph.

@srkris

SN7.8 has an incident where a Brahmin from the Bharadvāja gotra had performed an Agnihotra, and offers a bowl of soma-pāyasam (payas means milk; pāyasam is a drink made from milk; soma-pāyasam is soma-juice mixed with milk) to the Buddha as the Buddha’s response to his initial statements appears to have impressed him. The Buddha however says to the effect “I dont consume food that has been offered to the gods in a Vedic ritual” (literally “food for which hymns had been chanted-over”) and refuses to drink the soma-pāyasam for that reason.

The exact words are “gāthābhigītaṃ abhojaneyyaṃ” & “aññena… annena pānena upaṭṭhahassu” which means - any food on which vedic verses have been chanted over and offered to the Vedic devas in a yajña (fire sacrifice), effectively the remnants left after the Devas had consumed their share of the food - was infra-dig for the Buddha to consume, as he was higher in the pecking order than the devas (in his own estimation).

Further the use of the word abhojaneyyaṃ shows that he normally would have considered it in the category of “bhojana” (food), but he could not accept the slight of partaking the remains of what the devas didnt consume (normally poured/placed into the sacrificial agni or fire - as agni is the messenger of the devas and was believed to convey the soma or any other offering of food to them).

So he refuses to drink it for the very specific reason that it had not been offered to him first, the soma-pāyasam was a remnant of a yajña which had been accompanied by vedic verses asking the devas to consume it first.

Also he asks for “añña anna/pāna” (“other food and drink”) i.e that which hadnt been offered to the devas in a vedic ritual, which shows that he regarded the soma-pāyasam to be in the same category as food (bhojana, anna and pāna) but he wouldn’t consume it this time.

It is not a general rejection of soma consumption - rather it was a general rejection of Vedic ritual offerings of food to the Devas.

[Layman]

As for ‘experts’, specialists’ the like, are they any less ignorant? Not in my book.

Their path in life , their life experience, which culture they grew up in etc , determines the way they see things, the way they see, determines the way they think, the way they think, determines the way they proliferate.

yaṃ vedeti, taṃ sañjānāti. Yaṃ sañjānāti, taṃ vitakketi, yaṃ vitakketi, taṃ papañceti

I’m interested in very different kind of experts.