Tvashtarत्वष्टृ

Tvashtar (त्वष्टृ), whose name comes from a root meaning to fashion, is the artisan god of the Ṛgveda: the heavenly smith and carpenter who forged the vajra, the thunderbolt with which Indra slew the serpent Vritra, and who made the gods' drinking bowl and other marvels. His craft extends beyond metal and wood — he is the shaper of forms as such, invoked as the one who moulds the embryo in the womb and gives creatures their variety. He is also keeper of the soma, the divine draught, a trust that draws him into his most consequential myths.

Father and adversary of Indra

Tvashtar's relations with Indra are famously vexed. Some verses make him Indra's father, and tell how the young god seized his father's soma by force. More fatally, Tvashtar's son Vishvarupa — the three-headed one, Trishiras — served as chaplain of the gods but favoured their enemies, and Indra struck off his three heads. In the tradition of the Brāhmaṇas and the epic, the grieving artisan then created Vritra himself, the great serpent, to avenge his son — so that the monster Indra's thunderbolt destroyed was the work of the very craftsman who forged the weapon. Through his daughter Saranyu, married to Vivasvat the sun, Tvashtar is also grandfather of Yama and Manu — the first mortal and the father of mankind.

Afterlife

Tvashtar is counted in the classical lists among the twelve Ādityas, but as an independent figure he did not survive the Vedic age. His functions and even his identity were absorbed by Vishvakarma, the all-maker, with whom later texts routinely merge him; the divine artisan of classical mythology goes by the younger name. What persists of Tvashtar is his handiwork — the thunderbolt, the forms of creatures — and the sombre myth of the maker whose skill armed the god who destroyed his son.