The waters’ cleft that had been blocked,
by smashing Vr
̇tra he opened it up.
12... You won the cows, hero, you won the Soma,
you freed the seven streams to flow.
13 Nor lightning nor thunder availed him,
nor the rain and hail he poured forth.
As Indra and the Serpent have fought,
for the future too the Bounteous one is victorious.That this is a nature myth is clear enough, though the consciousness
that Indra’svajra- represents the thunderbolt has faded: the storm is inter-
preted in stanza 13 as Vr
̇
tra’s assault on Indra instead of vice versa (cf. 1. 80.
12). The conflict is mostly treated as a past event, but the tenses fluctuate
between past and present, and it is recognized that Indra’s victory is of
continuing significance (4, 13). Vr
̇
tra’s body lies now in the waters, sunk in
darkness (10).
There is in the Avesta a demon of drought Apaosˇa who fights against
Tis ˇtrya (Sirius) and at first overcomes him, to the detriment of the waters and
plants. But then he is defeated and driven away, whereupon the streams that
water the crops flow forth unhindered. Apaosˇafights in the form of a hairless
black horse, Tisˇtrya as a fine white one with golden ears (Yt. 8. 21–31, cf. 18. 2,
6). There is no thunder-god here; the role of victor over the demon is assigned
to the stellar deity as seasonal power. But Apaosˇa’s function is parallel to
Vr
̇
tra’s, and his name is analysed as from *ap(a)-vr
̇t-, ‘water-blocker’, with
the second element as in Vr
̇
tra.^65
The Greek thunder-god’s great mythical opponent is Typhoeus. The classic
account of their conflict is to be found in Hesiod’s Theogony (820–80).
Typhoeus (or Typhaon, as Hesiod calls him elsewhere) is a monster with a
hundred serpent heads that flash with fire and give out alarming animal
noises of many kinds. He would have become master of gods and men if Zeus
had not seen the danger and attacked him with his thunder. The world is
plunged into tumult:
A conflagration held the violet-dark sea in its grip,
both from the thunder and lightning and from the fire of the monster,
from the tornado winds and the flaming bolt.
All the land was seething, and sky, and sea;
long waves raged to and fro about the headlands
from the onrush of the immortals, and an uncontrollable quaking arose. (844–9)(^65) J. Wackernagel in Aufsätze Ernest Kuhn gewidmet (Munich 1916), 158 f. =Kl. Schr. 448 f.; cf.
Oldenberg (1917), 140.
- Storm and Stream 257