Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.40

c14.40

Thus a hymn in the first book of the Rigveda (I, 53). The forts destroyed by Indra are said to be of stone, or with the epithet *āmā*, which may refer to unbaked (‘raw’) brick walls; some are ‘autumnal’, which may mean that they were protected from the river floods after the rains. Indra is *puramdara*, the fort destroyer: ‘Thou smitest foemen down, and many a citadel’, ‘thou breakest down the seven citadels’ say the bards in his praise. He ‘rends forts as age consumes a garment’.