Hindu Gods and Heroes | Page 8

memory and at last raised him to the rank of a chief god. Now they had
previously worshipped two very high gods; one of these was
Dyaush-pita, the Sky-father, of whom I have spoken before, and
another was Tvashta, the All-creator. So some of them, as the Rig-veda
proves, declared that Dyaus was the father of Indra, and others appear
to have given this honour to Tvashta, while others regarded Tvashta as
Indra's grandfather; and some even said that in order to obtain the soma
to inspire him to divine deeds Indra killed his father, which of course is
just an imaginative way of saying that Indra was made into a god and
worshipped in place of the elder god.
The puzzle now is solved. Indra has remained down to the time of the
Rig-veda true to his early nature, an epic hero and typical warrior; but

he has also borrowed from the old Sky-father the chief attributes of a
sky-spirit, especially the giving of rain and the making of light, which
the priests of the Rig-veda riddlingly describe as setting free the waters
and the cows. He bears the thunderbolt, as does also Zeus; like Zeus, he
has got it from the Sky-father, who had likewise a thunderbolt,
according to some Rigvedic poets, though others say it was forged for
him by Tvashta, his other father. I even venture to think that there is a
kernel of heroic legend in the story of the slaying of Vritra; that at
bottom it is a tale relating how Indra with a band of brave fellows
stormed a mountain hold surrounded by water in which dwelt a wicked
chieftain who had carried away the cattle of his people, and that when
Indra had risen to the rank of a great god of the sky men added to this
plain tale much mythical decoration appropriate to his new quality,
turning the comrades of Indra into the storm-gods and interpreting the
waters and cows to mean rain and daylight. Since most of us are agreed
that stories such as that of Indra defeating Sambara for the benefit of
Divodasa refer to real events, it seems unnatural to suppose that the
Vritra-legend is a purely imaginary myth. We can thus explain why the
ideas of Indra setting free the rain and the light fit in so awkwardly with
the heroic element in the legend: for they are merely secondary
attributes, borrowed from the myths of other gods and mechanically
attached to Indra on his elevation in the pantheon. But we can explain
much more. There is a regular cycle of hero-saga connected with Indra
which is visible or half-visible at the back of some of the Vedic hymns
and of the priestly literature which is destined to follow them.
The truth is that the priests of the Rig-veda on the whole have not quite
made up their minds about Indra's merits, and we shall find them a few
generations hence equally uncertain. They praise his heroic deeds
lustily and admire his power immensely; but they are keenly aware that
he is a god with a past, and sometimes they dwell on that. Their
favourite method is to relate some of his former questionable deeds in
the form of a reproach, and then to turn the story to his credit in some
way or another; but as time goes on and the priests think less and less
of most of their gods, Indra's character will steadily sink, and in the end
we shall find him playing a subordinate part, a debauched king in a
sensuous paradise, popularly worshipped as a giver of rain. But this is

to anticipate. As yet Indra is to the Rigvedic priests a very great god;
but how did he become so? If we read carefully the hymn RV. IV.
xviii.[7] we see at the back of it a story somewhat like this. Before he
was born, Tvashta, Indra's grandfather, knew that Indra would
dispossess him of his sovereignty over the gods, and therefore did his
best to prevent his birth (cf. RV. III. xlviii.); but the baby Indra would
not be denied, and he forced his way into the light of day through the
side of his mother Aditi, who seems to be the same as Mother Earth (cf.
Ved. Stud., ii, p. 86), killed his father, and drank Tvashta's soma, by
which he obtained divine powers. In v. 12 of this hymn Indra excuses
himself by saying that he was in great straits, and that then the soma
was brought to him by an eagle. What these straits were is indicated in
another hymn (IV. xxvii.), which tells us that he was imprisoned, and
escaped on the back of the eagle, which he compelled to carry him; the
watchman Krisanu shot an