Wielder of the thunderbolt, king of the devas
Indra is the warrior king of the Vedic gods: a mighty golden-haired figure wielding the vajra, the thunderbolt forged by the craftsman god Tvashtri, his strength doubled by draughts of soma. He rides the white, four-tusked elephant Airavata and rules the celestial city of Amaravati with the storm-riding Maruts as his war band. Roughly a quarter of the thousand-odd hymns of the Rigveda are addressed to him, more than to any other god.
His defining deed is told in Rigveda 1.32: the serpent Vritra, the 'Obstructor,' had coiled around the mountains and locked up the waters of the world. Indra drank deep of soma, split the serpent open with his thunderbolt, and the imprisoned rivers burst forth like lowing cattle. Vedic poets returned to this dragon-slaying again and again as a victory that renewed creation itself.
In the epics and Puranas Indra's standing falls: he becomes a king of heaven repeatedly routed by asuras and forced to beg Vishnu or Shiva for rescue, and he is cursed for seducing the sage's wife Ahalya. In the Bhagavata Purana the boy Krishna persuades the herders of Vraja to stop Indra's sacrifice; Indra retaliates with seven days of storm, and Krishna holds up Mount Govardhana on one finger as an umbrella until the god submits. Carried east with Buddhism, Indra became Sakra, chief of the protector gods, rendered in Chinese Buddhist texts as Dishitian.
