Vedic Mythology c5.s2.34

c5.s2.34

Among stories preserving historical traits is that of Indra having safely brought Turvaśa and Yadu across the rivers (1, 174⁹ &c.). They are the eponymous heroes of two closely connected Aryan tribes, which are, however, sometimes mentioned by the poets in a hostile sense. This varying attitude is a tolerably sure indication of historical matter. Here the national warrior god appears as the patron of Aryan migrations. In another passage Indra is said with Suśravas to have crushed twenty chiefs and their 60099 warriors with fatal chariot wheel. The accounts of the conflicts of king Sudās have all the appearence of a historical character. Thus Indra is said to have helped him in the battle of the ten kings (7, 33³), to have aided him in answer to the prayers of his priests the Tṛtsus (among whom Vasiṣṭha is prominent), and to have drowned his foes in the river Paruṣṇī (7, 18⁹. ¹³).