The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.65.5

c12.65.5

Now this Vritra-han may not have been originally the same as Indra, for the word Indra does not occur in European Aryan languages, and it has, therefore, been suggested by some comparative mythologians that the conquest of waters, which was originally the exploit of some other Aryan deity, was probably ascribed to Indra in the Vedic mythology, when Indra became the principal deity in the Vedic pantheon. The fact that Tishtrya, and not Verethraghna, is said to be the releaser of waters and light in the Avesta, lends some support to this theory. But whichever view we adopt, it does not affect the conclusion we have come to above regarding the true explanation of the Vritra legend. Clouds and rain cannot constitute the physical basis of the legend, which is evidently based on the simple phenomenon of bringing light to the people who had anxiously waited for it during the darkness of the long night in the Arctic regions; and it is a pity that any misconception regarding Vedic cosmography, or the nature of waters and their cosmic movements, should have, for sometime at least, stood in the way of the true interpretation of this important legend. Indra may have become a storm-god afterwards; or the conquest over Vritra, originally achieved by some other deity, may have come to be ascribed to Indra, the rain-god in later times.