The article examines the depiction of the Zoroastrian equivalent of the Indo-Iranian sacred drink, Haoma, in Armenian and world literature. At the end of the 18th century, the Zoroastrian holy book ”Avesta” was translated into French for the first time. Over the next 250 years, this religion and its symbols remained a focal point for scholars, translators, and writers worldwide. Armenian authors also took an interest in it, paying attention to Haoma, a deity frequently depicted in Avesta and holding a significant place in ancient Iranian rituals. Haoma is the Iranian counterpart of the ancient Indian Soma.
The article is relevant because this topic has not been comprehensively analyzed and systematized in Armenian literature. Another reason for its significance is that the great Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents wrote the poem ”Soma” in 1918, which led to some scholarly study of the Indian manifestation of the sacred plant and liquid by Armenian researchers. However, to fully understand the mythological foundations of the poem, it is also necessary to study the Haoma mythological phenomenon as depicted in Armenian and world literature. This article represents the first attempt to examine Charents’s poem in the context of the Soma-Haoma mythological unity and its cult.
The study explores the reflections of Haoma and ”Avesta” in the works of Armenian writers and scholars from the 5th century to the present. Among the representations of the sacred Haoma drink, the works of Daniel Varouzhan, Leo, and Levon Khechoyan have been highlighted. The article also examines references to Zoroastrianism in the works of Raffi, Siamanto, and others. To accurately interpret Soma within a mythological context, traces of Zoroastrianism in Charents’s works are identified.
The research employs historical-comparative, comparative-contrastive, and mythological methodologies. Relevant phenomena in Armenian literature are compared with Zoroastrian mythology, classical historians (Herodotus, Plutarch), and writers from the Middle Ages and modern times (Ferdowsi, Gustave Flaubert, Georg Ebers). The depictions of Haoma in Armenian literary works and the representation of Soma in Charents’s poetry are compared with translations of ”Avesta” passages, particularly those dedicated to the sacred Haoma drink, by Russian Symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont.
One of the theoretical foundations of this study is comparative mythology. The author integrates observations by Armenian philologists and religious scholars with the ideas of renowned mythologists, particularly Friedrich Windischmann and Dmitry Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky. Interdisciplinary connections are also made with history, philosophy, and psychology. The views of Hegel and Carl Jung on the Haoma deity are referenced.
The main conclusion of the article is that Zoroastrianism, its sacred text ”Avesta”, and the Haoma sacred plant and drink hold a significant place in Armenian literature. The Armenian reflections of the Iranian Haoma, particularly its representation as the Soma deity introduced into Armenian reality by Charents, form a unified whole.