A story · Vedas · Vedas — Stories

Indra and Vritra

Rig Veda 1.32

The story · English

Let me tell you the deeds of Indra, the first ones he did, Indra who carries the vajra. He killed the serpent Ahi, who lay coiled on the mountain. He cut a path for the waters and broke open the channels of the mountains. The weapon he struck with was a vajra that Tvashtar had made for him, a bolt that roared through the sky. Once the serpent was dead, the waters ran straight down to the sea, like cows lowing as they hurry home. Before the fight, Indra had chosen the soma. Eager as a bull, he drank the pressed juice from three vessels, the Trikadrukas. Then Maghavan, the bountiful one, took up the vajra as his missile and struck down the firstborn of all serpents.

The poet turns to Indra himself and speaks to him. "When you killed the firstborn of the serpents," he says, "you undid the tricks of the tricksters. Then you brought the sun into being, and the sky, and the dawn, and after that you found no enemy left to stand against you." With the great, killing vajra, Indra struck Vritra, the worst of all who hold things back, and cut his shoulders from his body. Like branches lopped off by an axe, the serpent lay stretched along the ground. Vritra had called Indra out like a drunken man who thinks he is a fighter, challenging the great hero who crushes many. He could not survive the clash of weapons. Indra's enemy went down, and in falling he crushed everything beneath him.

Even without feet, without hands, Vritra still fought against Indra. Indra brought the vajra down on his back. He had wanted to match the bull, but he was like a gelded ox beside it, and now Vritra lay scattered in many places. He lay there like a broken reed, and the waters, their courage returning, flowed on over him. The very waters he had once wrapped around with his great bulk now held the serpent under their feet. Then Vritra's mother lost her strength. Indra hurled his weapon down at her as well. The mother lay above, the son below. Danu lay there like a cow stretched out beside her calf.

Vritra's body was laid among streams that never stand still and never come to rest. The waters wandered over his hidden body, and the enemy of Indra sank into a long darkness. Before this, the waters had stood like wives held by a Dasa, guarded by the serpent, shut away like cows hidden by the Pani. The outlet of the waters had been closed. When Indra killed Vritra, he threw it open. Again the poet speaks to Indra. "You became like a horse's tail, Indra, when he struck back at you on the point of your weapon, you, the one god. You won the cows, brave one, you won the soma, and you set the seven rivers free to run."

Nothing helped Vritra. Not the lightning, not the thunder, not the mist he spread around, not the hail. When Indra and the serpent fought, Maghavan won, and won for all time to come. Then the poet asks Indra a question. "Whom did you see coming to avenge the serpent, Indra, that fear entered your heart after you had killed him, so that you crossed ninety-nine flowing rivers, crossing the regions like a frightened hawk?" Yet the hymn ends with Indra as king. The one who holds the vajra in his arm is king of all that moves and all that stays still, of the gentle animals and the horned ones. He rules as king over all peoples, and he holds them all around him, as the rim of a wheel holds its spokes.

कथा · हिन्दी

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