Indra's strange birth

A dialogue hymn in which the unborn Indra refuses the usual way of birth, is hidden by his mother, deserted by the gods and brought Soma by a falcon.

The story, beat by beat

1. A voice urges the unborn child to be born by the ancient path and not destroy his mother.
2. The child refuses and says he will come out from the side.
3. His mother has carried him a thousand months and many autumns.
4. Thinking him a reproach, his mother hides him; he rises by himself and fills earth and heaven.
5. He drinks Soma in Tvashtri's house.
6. The mother points to the shouting rivers her son set free by killing Vritra.
7. She says she cast him away, and that the waters were gracious to him.
8. She tells him the gods forsake him; he asks his friend Vishnu to stride out.
9. A voice asks who made his mother a widow and who comforted him when he seized his father by the foot and slew him.
10. Indra says he once cooked a dog's entrails in need, found no comforter among the gods, and then the falcon brought him Soma.

birth abandonment mother and son soma