This strong (virile) _soma_, pressed for drink, flows into the purifying vessel; this sightly (as above, where Hillebrandt says it is epithet of the moon), yellow, fiery one, is flowing into the purifying vessel; roaring into its own place (as above). This strong one, clear, shining (or purifying itself), runs through the shining places of the sky, slaying evil demons, through the sheep-hair-sieve. On the back of Trita this one shining (or purifying itself) made bright the sun with (his) sisters.[21] This one, slaying Vritra, strong, pressed out, finding good things (as above), uninjured, _soma_, went as if for booty. This god, sent forth by seers, runs into the vessels, the drop (_indu_) for Indra, quickly (or willingly). So far as we can judge, after comparing these and the other passages that are cited by Hillebrandt as decisive for a lunar interpretation of _soma_, it seems quite as probable that the epithets and expressions used are employed of the plant metaphorically as that the poet leaps thus lightly from plant to moon. And there is a number of cases which plainly enough are indicative of the plant alone to make it improbable that Hillebrandt is correct in taking Soma as the moon 'everywhere in the Rig Veda.' It may be that the moon-cult is somewhat older than has been supposed, and that the language is consciously veiled in the ninth book to cover the worship of a deity as yet only partly acknowledged as such. But it is almost inconceivable that an hundred hymns should praise the moon; and all the native commentators, bred as they were in the belief of their day that _soma_ and the moon were one, should not know that _soma_ in the Rig Veda (as well as later) means the lunar deity. It seems, therefore, safer to abide by the belief that _soma_ usually means what it was understood to mean, and what the general descriptions in the _soma_-hymns more or less clearly indicate, _viz._, the intoxicating plant, conceived of as itself divine, stimulating Indra, and, therefore, the _causa movens_ of the demon's death, Indra being the _causa efficiens_. Even the allusions to _soma_ being in the sky is not incompatible with this. For he is carried thence from the place of sacrifice. Thus too in 83. 1-2: "O lord of prayer[22], thy purifier (the sieve) is extended. Prevailing thou enterest its limbs on all sides. Raw (_soma_), that has not been cooked (with milk) does not enter into it. Only the cooked (_soma_), going through, enters it. The sieve of the hot drink is extended in the place of the sky. Its gleaming threads extend on all sides. This (_soma_'s) swift (streams) preserve the man that purifies them, and wisely ascend to the back of the sky." In this, as in many hymns, the drink _soma_ is clearly addressed; yet expressions are used which, if detached, easily might be thought to imply the moon (or the sun, as with Bergaigne)--a fact that should make one employ