The Slaying of Vritra

When the Pandavas wished to understand how even the king of the gods had once been brought low, and what sacrifice it had taken to save the worlds, the sages told them of the slaying of Vritra and the price that victory cost.

There arose in the old days a demon of terrible power named Vritra, a vast serpent-like being who grew until he covered the worlds. Worst of all, Vritra seized and swallowed up the waters of the world - the rivers and the rains, the very waters of life - and held them imprisoned within himself. With the waters bound, a great drought fell upon all creation. The rivers dried, the rains failed, the crops withered, and gods and men alike began to perish of thirst and famine while the demon coiled over the earth, vast and unconquerable, hoarding the waters of the world in his belly.

Indra, king of the gods, the lord of storm and thunder, took up his arms and led the host of heaven against Vritra to free the waters and save the worlds. But the demon was too mighty. Again and again Indra hurled his weapons against Vritra, and again and again they failed; the demon's power turned aside every blow, and the gods were beaten back. Indra's ordinary thunderbolt could not pierce him. No weapon in all the armory of heaven could so much as wound the great serpent who held the waters.

Defeated and despairing, the gods went to seek counsel, for it seemed the worlds must die of thirst beneath an enemy that could not be killed. And they learned a hard truth: that Vritra could be slain by only one weapon in all of creation - a thunderbolt of irresistible power that could be forged from one substance alone, the bones of a certain great sage. There lived a rishi named Dadhichi, a holy man of immense penance, whose bones had grown so strong and so charged with spiritual power that a weapon made from them would be mightier than any in heaven. Only such a weapon, made from Dadhichi's own bones, could destroy Vritra. But to make it, the sage would have to die, and give his bones to the gods.

The gods came to the hermitage of Dadhichi and laid their desperate need before him. They told him that the worlds were dying, that Vritra could be killed by no weapon but one forged from his bones, and that to make it he would have to give up his life. It was a fearful thing to ask of any being - to ask a man to die, willingly, and surrender his very skeleton for the saving of others.

But Dadhichi did not hesitate. He was a sage who had long understood that the body is a passing thing, and that there is no higher use a life can be put to than the saving of the world. "If my bones can free the waters and deliver all creation from this demon," he said, "then gladly will I give them. What better end could a body come to than this? Take what you need."

And so the great sage Dadhichi composed himself in deep meditation, fixed his mind upon the highest reality, and willingly gave up his life by the power of his own yoga, laying down his body so that the gods might have his bones. It is remembered as one of the supreme acts of self-sacrifice in all the old tales: a holy man who surrendered his life and his very skeleton, without being compelled, to save a world that was not even at his door.

From the bones of Dadhichi, and above all from his mighty spine, the divine craftsman of the gods forged a weapon of unmatched power: the Vajra, the thunderbolt, a weapon harder than any metal and charged with the whole accumulated spiritual force of the sage who had given his life for it. Into it, too, was set the power of Vishnu, the preserver, so that it carried a might no demon could withstand.

The Vajra blazed in Indra's hand, terrible and beautiful, the deadliest weapon in all the worlds, made from the freely given bones of a saint. With it, at last, the king of the gods had the means to face Vritra. He took up the thunderbolt of Dadhichi and went out once more to battle, the gods rallying behind him, to free the waters of the world from the demon who had swallowed them.

Then was fought one of the greatest battles in the history of the worlds, between Indra armed with the new thunderbolt and Vritra the swallower of the waters. The two met, and their struggle shook heaven and earth. The demon was vast and mighty and full of cunning, and even against the Vajra he did not fall easily. The combat raged back and forth, neither able at first to overcome the other, the very elements convulsing around them.

At one point in the long battle, it is even told, the demon's power so overwhelmed Indra that he was swallowed by Vritra and had to cut his way out, or was forced to make a truce when his strength flagged. For Vritra was protected by a boon that made him hard to kill: he could not be slain, the boon declared, by anything wet or anything dry, nor by any weapon of metal or of wood, nor by day nor by night. Within those terms he believed himself safe, and so he fought on, certain that no moment and no weapon could be found that satisfied all the conditions of his death.

But every such boon has a seam in it, a moment its terms do not cover, and Indra, with the counsel of Vishnu, found Vritra's. The demon could not be killed by day or by night - so Indra waited for the twilight, the strange in-between hour that is neither day nor night. The demon could not be killed by anything wet or dry, nor by metal or wood - so Indra took up the foam of the sea, which is neither truly wet nor truly dry, neither solid nor liquid, neither metal nor wood, and into that foam he cast his thunderbolt and the power of Vishnu.

Then, in the gray uncertain light of dusk, the hour that belonged to neither day nor night, Indra hurled the foam charged with the Vajra and the might of Vishnu at Vritra - and the demon's boon gave him no protection, for the moment and the weapon fell exactly into the gap the boon had left. The thunderbolt forged of Dadhichi's bones struck home through the seam in Vritra's invulnerability, and the great demon who had swallowed the waters of the world was slain at last.

With Vritra dead, the waters he had imprisoned burst free at last. The rivers ran again, the rains returned, the seas were replenished, and the long drought lifted from the dying world. Creation was saved, and the gods rejoiced, and all of it had been bought by the freely given bones of the sage Dadhichi.

But the victory carried a hidden price. Vritra, for all his demonhood, had in some accounts been a being of brahmin nature, and to slay such a one was to incur the gravest of sins - brahmahatya, the sin of killing a brahmin. And so, in the very hour of his triumph, a terrible guilt and pollution fell upon Indra for the killing he had done. The sin of brahminicide, taking shape, pursued the king of the gods, and even the savior of the worlds could not simply shrug it off. Victory had not come clean. The deed that saved creation had stained the one who did it, and Indra now had to reckon with a consequence that his thunderbolt could not strike down.

Overwhelmed by the sin of having slain Vritra, Indra lost his power and his nerve. He fled and hid himself away, shrinking down small and concealing himself within the stalk of a lotus in the waters, unable to face the world or to rule, his glory dimmed and his strength gone, while the guilt worked upon him.

And while the king of the gods lay hidden and powerless, the throne of heaven stood empty, and the gods, needing a ruler, raised a mortal king of great virtue, Nahusha, to be Indra in his place - the very Nahusha who, lifted so high, would let the power go to his head, grow arrogant and cruel, and at last fall from heaven into the body of a serpent. So one demon's death set in motion another king's rise and ruin.

In time Indra was purified of his sin. By performing the proper expiations and the great horse sacrifice, and by distributing the burden of the guilt so that it could be borne, he was at last cleansed of the brahmahatya, and his power and his glory returned to him. He came forth from his hiding, reclaimed the throne of heaven, and ruled again as king of the gods - but he came back chastened, having learned that even a necessary killing leaves its mark, and that no being, however high, is above the law of consequence.

The sages drew out for the Pandavas the two great truths folded into the tale.

"The first is the glory of sacrifice. The worlds could not be saved by all the weapons of heaven, but only by the bones of a sage who gave his life freely for others. Dadhichi laid down his body without being compelled, asking nothing, so that the waters might be freed and creation might live. There is no higher use a life can be put to than that, and his name is honored above many a god's for it.

"The second is harder. Even a righteous, necessary victory may carry a price. Indra did what had to be done; he saved the worlds. And yet the deed stained him, and he could not escape its consequence, but had to suffer, and flee, and be purified, before he was whole again. So the tale teaches that the doing of a hard and necessary deed does not always leave the doer untouched - that even justified violence has its cost, which must be honestly borne and atoned, and not waved away. Remember it," the sages said, "you who will one day fight a necessary war."

And the Pandavas, who would indeed one day win a necessary and terrible war, and afterward be crushed by grief at its cost, remembered the slaying of Vritra and the price the king of the gods had paid for saving the world.