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 Ṛigvēdic priests a very great god; but how did he become so? If we read carefully the hymn RV. IV. xviii.[1] we see at the back of it a story somewhat like this. Before he was born, Tvashṭā, 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 Tvashṭā's sōma, 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 sōma was brought
- ↑ I follow in the interpretation of this hymn E. Sieg, Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, i. p. 76 ff. Cf. on the subject Ved. Stud., i. p, 211, ii. pp. 42-54. Charpentier, Die Suparṇasage, 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 sōma was brought, are echoes of an ancient and true tradition that Indra was once a mortal.
