Page 424 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 205
·These are not, however, the only points, in which the
Storm theory fails to explain the legend of Indra and Vritra.
It has been pointed out above that Vritra was killed in distant
regions, in which ghastly darkness reigned, and which abound-
ed in waters; while in X, 73, 7, Indra by killing Namuchi, alias
Vritra, is said to have cleared the gates of the DevayAna path,
evidently meaning that Vritra was killed at the gates of the path
leading to the region of the gods. Even in the Ave ta, the fight
between Apaosha and Tishtrya is said to have taken place in
the sea of Vouru-Ka ha, and Tishtrya is described as moving
along the path made by Mazda after his fight with Apaosha.
Vritra's abode is similarly described as ' hidden ' and ' envelop-
ed by water ' at the bottom of rajas ( I, 52, 6 ). None of these
conditions is satisfied by making the storm-cloud, the scene
of the battle between Indra and Vr,itra; for a cloud cannot be
said to be the ocean of waters, nor can it be described as lying
in a distant (para vat) region, or at the threshold of the Deva-
yana or the path of the gods. In the :Big-Veda paravat is usually
contrasted with aravat, and it means a distant region on the
other side, as contrasted with the region on this or the nearer
side. The Devayana is similarly contrasted with the Pitriycina,
and means the northern celestial hemisphere. The clouds over
the head of the observer cannot be said to be either in the dis-
tant region, or at the gate of the Devayana; nor can we speak
of them a enveloped by sut1-less darkness. It i , therefore,
highly improbable that the rain-clouds couJd have been the
scene of battle between Indra and Vr,itra. It wa the sea on the
other side, the dark ocean as contrasted with the bright ocean
( shukram ar'f}af:z ) which the sun mounts in the morning,
where the battle was fought according to the passages referred
to above; and the description is appropriate only in the case
of the nether world, the celestial hemisphere that lies under-
neath, and not in the case of clouds moving in the sky above.
I do not mean to say that Indra may not have been the god of
rain or thunderstorm, but as V ritrahan, or the killer of Vritra,
it is impossible to identify him with the god of rain, if the
description of the fight found in the Vedic passages is not to be
ignored or set aside.
The third objection to the current interpretation of the
Vritra myth, is that it does not satisfactorily explain the pass-