Comparison of Haoma/soma
Beyond the establishment of a common origin of haoma and soma and numerous attempts to give that common origin a botanic identity, little has been done to compare the two. As Indologist Jan Houben also noted in the proceedings of a 1999 workshop on Haoma-Soma, "apart from occasional and dispersed remarks on similarities in structure and detail of Vedic and Zoroastrian rituals, little has been done on the systematic comparison of the two" (Houben, 2003, 9/1a).
Houben's observation is also significant in that, as of 2003, no significant comparative review of cultural/sacred Haoma/Soma had extended beyond Alfred Hillebrandt's 1891 comparison of the Vedic deity and the Zoroastrian divinity. (Hillebrandt, Alfred (1891). Vedische Mythologie. I: Soma und verwandte Goetter. Breslau: Koebner.)
All more recent studies that address commonality have dealt only with botanic identification of proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma. Houben's workshop, the first of its kind, dealt with "the nature of the Soma/Haoma plant and the juice pressed from it" and that "the main topic of the workshop (was) the identity of the Soma/Haoma." (Houben, 2003, 9/1b)
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