There has been much speculation as to the original Rigvedic Soma plant (and of the Proto-Indo-Iranian *Sauma which besides Soma is reflected in the Iranian Haoma). Since the late 1700s, when Anquetil-Duperron and others made portions of the Avesta available to western scholarship, several scholars have sought a representative botanical equivalent of the haoma as described in the texts and as used in living Zoroastrian practice. Most of the proposals concentrated on either linguistic evidence or comparative pharmacology or reflected ritual use. Rarely were all three considered together, which usually resulted in such proposals being quickly rejected.