The First Cup

Indra had thrown his thunderbolt at Vritra, and then he had run.

He was not sure the blow had been enough. He thought himself the weaker of the two, and so the king of the gods hid, and the other gods hid in the same place with him. Nobody knew whether the enemy was lying dead on the ground or getting up again.

"We do not know if Vritra is slain or alive," the gods said to one another. "One of us must go and look."

Nobody wanted to be the one. Then they turned to Vayu, the Wind, the one who blows out there in the open.

"You go, Vayu," they said. "You are the swiftest of us. If he is alive, you will be back here before he can touch you."

Vayu did not move yet.

"And what shall my reward be?"

"The first call of the offering, when King Soma is poured," said the gods. "The first cup is yours."

"So be it," said Vayu, and he went.

He found Vritra slain. He came back and told them plainly. "Vritra is dead. Do with the dead what you like."

The gods rushed to the place like men hurrying to claim their property. In this passage the Brahmana treats the fallen Vritra and King Soma as one and the same, and so what the gods seized was Soma. Each took what he could in a vessel of his own. What one god caught became a cup for one god. What two caught together became a cup for two.

But there was a difficulty. The fallen one stank. A sour and rotten smell blew towards them, and what they held was fit neither to offer nor to drink.

They turned to Vayu a second time.

"Vayu, blow through him. Make him sweet for us."

"And what shall my reward be then?"

"The cups themselves shall be named after you."

"So be it," said Vayu. "But you must blow along with me."

The gods drove off part of the smell, and Vayu blew through the rest, and Soma became good to offer and good to drink. That is why, the Brahmana says, the Soma vessels are called Vayu's vessels, whichever god they are filled for.

Now Indra, out of hiding, looked at all this and thought it over. The first cup was Vayu's. The very vessels carried Vayu's name. The Wind had the largest share of the whole sacrifice.

"Vayu," said Indra, "let me share in this cup."

"What will come of it if I do?"

"Speech will speak clearly," said Indra.

"If speech will speak clearly, then I will let you share."

So the cup that had been Vayu's alone became the cup of Indra and Vayu. But they quarrelled at once over the measure.

"Half of this cup is mine," said Indra.

"Only a fourth is yours," said Vayu.

"Half!"

"A fourth."

They took the quarrel to Prajapati, the father of the gods. Prajapati divided the cup in two and set one half before Vayu. Then he divided the other half in two again.

"This is Vayu's," he said. "And this is yours."

So Indra had his quarter, and he was not pleased.

"If I am given only a fourth," he said, "then only a fourth of speech shall speak clearly."

And so it is, the Brahmana says. The fourth part of speech is what human beings speak, and it can be understood. The speech of beasts, the speech of birds and the speech of the small creeping things are the other three parts, and they remain unclear to this day.

The priests of the Rigveda kept a shorter story about the same cup. In their telling there is no dead dragon and no bad smell. There is only King Soma, pressed and ready, and a crowd of gods who cannot agree.

"Let me drink first," said one.

"No, let me drink first," said another.

Every god wanted the first taste, and none would give way. At last they looked for some way to settle it.

"Come, let us run a race," they said. "Whoever wins shall drink first of the Soma."

"So be it."

They lined up and they ran. Vayu took the lead at once, as anyone might have guessed. Behind him came Indra, behind Indra came Mitra and Varuna together, and behind them the twin Ashvins.

Indra, running hard, looked at the back of the Wind in front of him and saw how the race would end. He pulled up as close behind Vayu as he could.

"Let us share it," he called. "Then we win together."

"No," said Vayu. "I alone shall win."

Indra ran on.

"A third for me, then, and we win together."

"No. I alone shall win."

"A fourth for me!"

Vayu considered that.

"So be it," he said.

So he let Indra in for a quarter share, and the two of them crossed the line as one. Mitra and Varuna came in next, and the Ashvins after them. The gods drink in the order they finished: first the cup of Indra and Vayu, then the cup of Mitra and Varuna, then the cup of the Ashvins. And in the first cup a quarter is Indra's and three quarters are the Wind's.

The Brahmana adds a note from its own day. When the Bharatas went raiding, it says, their charioteers claimed a fourth of the spoil, and they pointed to this race as their reason. The poet of the Rigveda had already sung of Vayu coming with his teams, with Indra as the charioteer beside him.