Indra and the Dragon

"I will tell the heroic deeds of Indra," the poet begins, "the first ones, which the thunder-wielder did."

This is the first of them.

There was a dragon, and his name was Vritra. He had no hands and no feet. He lay coiled upon the mountain, and inside his coils he held the waters, all of them. Nothing flowed. The rivers were shut up like cattle in a robber's pen.

Indra got ready. The craftsman Tvashtri had forged a thunderbolt for him, the vajra, a weapon made for heaven. Indra drank his Soma, three great vessels of it. Then he took the thunderbolt in his hand and went to the mountain.

The dragon was not afraid of him. The poet says that he challenged the great hero like a drunken, feeble fighter who does not know what he is facing. He had weapons of his own, and he used them all. He threw lightning and thunder at Indra. He sent mist and hail.

None of it helped him. He struck at the thunderbolt, and Indra brushed the blow aside as lightly as a horse flicks its tail.

Then Indra struck. He hit the dragon between the shoulders, and Vritra, the firstborn of dragons, came down like the trunk of a tree felled by an axe. Even then, handless and footless, he went on fighting. Indra struck again, and he lay broken, his limbs scattered over the ground.

His mother came to protect him. Her name was Danu, and Indra struck her down too. The poet gives her one line of pity: she lay across her son like a cow beside her calf.

Then the waters moved.

They ran down over the dragon's body, lowing like cattle let out of the pen, and found their way to the sea. Seven rivers were set free that day. The sun rose, and the dawn and the sky were seen as if for the first time. The waters carried Vritra's nameless body away into the long dark.

The hymn should end there. But in the verse before the last, the poet turns to Indra and asks him an odd question.

"What did you see, Indra, that fear came into your heart after you had killed him? Why did you fly across ninety-nine rivers, like a frightened hawk?"

No answer is given. The last verse simply praises him as king of everything that moves and everything that stays still. The question was left for later storytellers, who found a good many answers for it.

The Mahabharata remembers the same battle, but in its telling Indra cannot win it with any weapon he has.

Vritra was the leader of a fierce clan of demons, and they had beaten the gods back again and again. With Indra at their head the gods went to Brahma, the creator, and asked what could be done.

"There is a sage named Dadhicha," said Brahma. "Go to him and say: for the good of the three worlds, give us your bones. From his bones, make a weapon. With that, Vritra can be killed."

It was a dreadful thing to ask of any man. The gods went, all together, to his hermitage on the far bank of the river Sarasvati. They bowed to the sage and told him what they had come for.

Dadhicha did not hesitate, and he did not ask for anything.

"I will do what is good for you," he said. "I give up this body of my own free will."

He let go of his life then and there.

The gods carried his bones to Tvashtri, the craftsman. Tvashtri was glad to do the work, and he forged from them a thunderbolt with six edges, fierce and terrible. "With this, O king of the gods," he said, "burn your enemy to ashes."

Even so, it was a near thing. When the battle was joined the gods broke and fled, and Indra himself lost heart. Vishnu gave him his own strength, and after him the other gods and the sages did the same.

Then Vritra roared, so loudly that earth and sky shook. Indra was seized with fear, and in his fear he threw the thunderbolt. It struck, and the great demon fell like a mountain.

But Indra did not see it. He was already running. He was sure the bolt had never left his hand, and that Vritra was still alive behind him. He ran, looking for a lake to hide in, while behind him the battle was already won.