s a god of just the
same sort as Zeus, whose nature and history I have already explained
according to my lights. In the far-away past Indra was simply a hero:
very likely he was once a chieftain on earth. The story of his great
deeds so fascinated the imagination of men that they worshipped his
memory and at last raised him to the rank of a chief god. Now they had
previously worshipped two very high gods; one of these was
Dyaush-pita, the Sky-father, of whom I have spoken before, and another
was Tvashta, the All-creator. So some of them, as the Rig-veda
proves, declared that Dyaus was the father of Indra, and others appear
to have given this honour to Tvashta, while others regarded Tvashta as
Indra's grandfather; and some even said that in order to obtain the
soma to inspire him to divine deeds Indra killed his father, which of
course is just an imaginative way of saying that Indra was made into a
god and worshipped in place of the elder god.

The puzzle now is solved. Indra has remained down to the time of the
Rig-veda true to his early nature, an epic hero and typical warrior;
but he has also borrowed from the old Sky-father the chief attributes
of a sky-spirit, especially the giving of rain and the making of
light, which the priests of the Rig-veda riddlingly describe as
setting free the waters and the cows. He bears the thunderbolt, as
does also Zeus; like Zeus, he has got it from the Sky-father, who had
likewise a thunderbolt, according to some Rigvedic poets, though
others say it was forged for him by Tvashta, his other father. I even
venture to think that there is a kernel of heroic legend in the story
of the slaying of Vritra; that at bottom it is a tale relating how
Indra with a band of brave fellows stormed a mountain hold surrounded
by water in which dwelt a wicked chieftain who had carried away the
cattle of his people, and that when Indra had risen to the rank of a
great god of the sky men added to this plain tale much mythical
decoration appropriate to his new quality, turning the comrades of
Indra into the storm-gods and interpreting the waters and cows to mean
rain and daylight. Since most of us are agreed that stories such as
that of Indra defeating Sambara for the benefit of Divodasa refer to
real events, it seems unnatural to suppose that the Vritra-legend is a
purely imaginary myth. We can thus explain why the ideas of Indra
setting free the rain and the light fit in so awkwardly with the
heroic ele