From what I can see, Vedic Soma makes someone immortal and invulnerable.
Huxley's soma is some kind of narcotic haalucinogen. This is a list of quotes from the book that include the word "soma" in them, and it should give you an idea of the drug's effects and the characters' attitudes toward it: https://www.huxley.net/soma/somaquote.html
>From what I can see, Vedic Soma makes someone immortal and invulnerable.
Rig veda describes Soma is a hallucinogenic used for intoxication.
1. Intoxication, though not addiction, is a central theme of the Veda, since the sacrificial offering of the hallucinogenic juice of the soma plant was an element of several important Vedic rituals. The poets who “saw” the poems were inspired both by their meditations and by drinking the soma juice. The poems draw upon a corpus of myths about a fiery plant that a bird brings down from heaven; soma is born in the mountains or in heaven, where it is closely guarded; an eagle brings soma to earth (4.26-7) or to Indra (4.18.13), or the eagle carries Indra to heaven to bring the somabo
2. we have seen a Vedic poem (10.119) in which someone exhilarated (or stoned) on soma says that the drinks have carried him up and away, “Like horses bolting with a chariot.”
Source:
Doniger, Wendy (2009-02-24). The Hindus: An Alternative History (p. 122).
Having not read the book. Anyone know if that soma is based on vedic soma[1], seems like it.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(drink)#Vedic_soma