The Arctic Home in the Vedas c11.49.1

c11.49.1

We have seen that *shata-kratu* as applied to Indra is interpreted by Western scholars, and in many places even by Sâyaṇa himself, as meaning the lord of a hundred powers. Sâyaṇa now and then (III, 51, 2; X, 103, 7) suggests or gives an alternative explanation, and makes Indra ‘the master of a hundred sacrifices’; but Western scholars have gone further and discarded all other explanations except the one noted above. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the meaning of this epithet, as used in the Rig-Veda, a little more closely in this place. If the word *kratu* in *shata-kratu* be interpreted to mean 'might' or 'power,' the numeral *shata*, which strictly denotes 'a hundred,' will have to be taken as equivalent to 'many' or 'numerous,' inasmuch as no definite set of a hundred powers can be pointed out as specially belonging to Indra. That the word *shata* may be so interpreted is evident from the fact that adjectives like *shata-nîtha* (I, 100, 12) and *shatam-ûti* (I, 102, 6; 130, 8), as applied to Indra in the Rig-Veda, are found in other places in the form of *sahasra-nîtha* (III, 60, 7), and *sahasram-ûti* (I, 52, 2). Again Indra's arrow is once called *shata-bradhna* and also *sahasra-parṇa* in the same verse (VIII, 77, 7); while Soma is represented as going in a hundred ways (*shata-yâman*) in IX, 86, 16, and a few hymns after it is said to be *sahasra-yâman* or going in a thousand ways (IX, 106, 5).