Hindu Gods and Heroes | Page 9

arrow at the bird, but it passed harmlessly
through its feathers. Evidently in the story Indra had a hard struggle
with rival gods. One poet says (RV. IV. xxx. 3): "Not even all the gods,
O Indra, defeated thee, when thou didst lengthen days into nights,"
which apparently refers also to some miracle like that ascribed to
Joshua. Another tradition (MS. I. vi. 12) relates that while Indra and his
brother Vivasvan were still unborn they declared their resolve to oust
the Adityas, the elder sons of their mother Aditi; so the Adityas tried to
kill them when born, and actually slew Vivasvan, but Indra escaped.
Another version (TS. II. iv. 13) says that the gods, being afraid of Indra,
bound him with fetters before he was born; and at the same time Indra
is identified with the Rajanya, or warrior class, as its type and
representative.[8] This last point is immensely important, for it really
clinches the matter. Not once, but repeatedly, the priestly literature of
the generations that will follow immediately after that of the Rig-veda
will be found to treat Indra as the type of the warrior order.[9] They
will describe an imaginary coronation-ceremony of Indra, ending with
these words: "Anointed with this great anointment Indra won all
victories, found all the worlds, attained the superiority, pre-eminence,
and supremacy over all the gods, and having won the overlordship, the
paramount rule, the self rule, the sovereignty, the supreme authority,
the kingship, the great kingship, the suzerainty in this world,
self-existing, self-ruling, immortal, in yonder world of heaven, having

attained all desires he became immortal."[10] Thus we see that amidst
the maze of obscure legends about Indra there are three points which
stand out with perfect clearness. They are, firstly, that Indra was a
usurper; secondly, that the older gods fought hard but vainly to keep
him from supreme divinity, and that in his struggle he killed his father;
and thirdly, that he was identified with the warrior class, as opposed to
the priestly order, or Brahmans. This antagonism to the Brahmans is
brought out very clearly in some versions of the tales of his exploits.
More than once the poets of the Rig-veda hint that his slaying of Vritra
involved some guilt, the guilt of brahma-hatya, or slaughter of a being
in whom the brahma, or holy spirit, was embodied[11]; and this is
explained clearly in a priestly tale (TS. II. v. 2, 1 ff.; cf. SB. I. i. 3, 4, vi.
3, 8), according to which Indra from jealousy killed Tvashta's son
Visvarupa, who was chaplain of the gods, and thus he incurred the guilt
of brahma-hatya. Then Tvashta held a soma-sacrifice; Indra, being
excluded from it, broke up the ceremony and himself drank the soma.
The soma that was left over Tvashta cast into one of the sacred fires
and produced thereby from it the giant Vritra, by whom the whole
universe, including Agni and Soma, was enveloped (cf. the later
version in Mahabharata, V. viii. f.). By slaying him Indra again became
guilty of brahma-hatya; and some Rigvedic poets hint that it was the
consciousness of this sin which made him flee away after the deed was
done.
[Footnote 7: I follow in the interpretation of this hymn E. Sieg, Die
Sagenstoffe des Rgveda, i. p. 76 ff. Cf. on the subject Ved. Stud., i. p.
211, ii. pp. 42-54. Charpentier, Die Suparnasage, takes a somewhat
different view of RV. IV. xxvi.-xxvii., which, however, does not
convince me; I rather suspect that RV. IV. xxvi. 1 and 4, with their
mention of Manu, to whom the soma was brought, are echoes of an
ancient and true tradition that Indra was once a mortal.]
[Footnote 8: The other legend in MS. II. i. 12, that Aditi bound the
unborn Indra with an iron fetter, with which he was born, and of which
he was able to rid himself by means of a sacrifice, is probably later.]
[Footnote 9: E.g. AB. VII. xxxi., VIII. xii. Cf. BA. Up. I. iv. 11-13.]

[Footnote 10: AB. VIII. xiv. (Keith's translation).]
[Footnote 11: Cf. Sayana on RV. I. xciii. 5.]
These bits of saga prove, as effectually as is possible in a case like this,
that Indra was originally a warrior-king or chieftain who was deified,
perhaps by the priestly tribe of the Angirasas, who claim in some of the
hymns to have aided him in his fight with Vritra, and that he thus rose
to the first rank in the pantheon, gathering round himself a great cycle
of heroic legend based upon those traditions, and only secondarily and
by artificial invention becoming associated with the control of the rain
and the daylight.
The name Asvina means "The Two Horsemen"; what their other name,
Nasatya, signifies nobody has satisfactorily explained. But