Vritraवृत्र

Vritra is the great serpent of the Rigveda, the encloser, whose name derives from a root meaning to cover or obstruct. He lay coiled upon the mountains holding back the waters of the world, and his slaying by Indra is the deed around which the Vedic conception of that god is built. The combat is more than a duel: with the waters released and the rivers set flowing, the ordered world itself becomes possible, so that Indra's victory is an act of creation as much as of war.

In the Rigveda

The most famous account is the hymn beginning, in effect, let me now sing the heroic deeds of Indra. Fortified by soma, Indra strikes the serpent, also called Ahi, with the vajra, the thunderbolt fashioned for him, and the pent waters rush free like bellowing cattle. The myth belongs to a family of Indo-European dragon-slayings, and comparative scholars have long set Indra's deed beside those of other storm-wielding heroes; the epithet Vritrahan, slayer of Vritra, became almost a second name for Indra.

Later tellings

The epics and Puranas retell and complicate the story. Vritra becomes the son of the divine artificer Tvashtri, created to avenge Indra's killing of his son Vishvarupa, and since Vritra is a brahmin, his death fixes upon Indra the terrible sin of brahmin-slaying, which the god must expiate. In these versions the vajra is fashioned from the bones of the sage Dadhichi, freely surrendered for the purpose. The Bhagavata Purana goes furthest, transforming Vritra into an unexpected sage: a devotee of Vishnu who lectures Indra on the vanity of victory in the midst of their battle and welcomes his own death. The obstructing serpent of the Veda thus ends, many centuries on, as one of tradition's more surprising saints.