Deity · Vedic · c. 1400 BCE
Indra
Also called Ahihán, Indran, Ahihan, Indiran, Meghavahana, Vritrahan, Sakra, Sakka, Vajrapani, Vasava, इन्द्र (per Wikidata)
The thunderbolt-wielding king of the gods, who slays the serpent Vritra and releases the pent waters. It is the Indo-European form of the same combat myth as Baal against Yam.
Deep source base
The Rigveda's most-hymned god, and the one this corpus watches fall furthest. He kills Vritra, releases the waters and is celebrated without reservation — and then the tradition starts qualifying him. The Shatapatha Brahmana has him kill Visvarupa, the three-headed son of Tvashtri, and stop to insist that he was free from that sin — a defence nobody mounts unless an accusation is in the air; the tradition that makes the slaying of Vritra itself a brahmin-killing runs through Vedic texts this corpus does not yet hold. By the Mahabharata he schemes, is outmatched and is afraid, and no text ever announces the demotion; it is simply how he is written. Buddhism takes him east as Sakka, a devout attendant at the Buddha's teaching. A king of the gods who ends as somebody's congregation is a specific kind of ending, and it is not the one that produces a demon.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Very few temples for a king of the gods, and the fall is the story: the Rigveda's most-hymned deity keeps almost no cult. Indra Jātrā at Kathmandu is the great surviving exception, held for eight days each autumn.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Rigveda · c. 1500-1200 BCE
- Rank
- King of the Devas
- Pantheon
- Vedic
- Order
- Vedic
- Base of operations
- Very few temples for a king of the gods, and the fall is the story: the Rigveda's most-hymned deity keeps almost no cult. Indra Jātrā at Kathmandu is the great surviving exception, held for eight days each autumn.
- Era
- c. 1400 BCE
- Traditions
- Vedic & Hindu
- Placed in
- Devas and Asuras
Traits
- Domain
- Storm, thunder, war, the release of the waters
- Element
- Air and fire
- Traditional form
- Wielding the vajra, riding the elephant Airavata
1 site
Where was it worshipped?
Attested cult sites, located against the Pleiades gazetteer of the ancient world where it reaches and against Wikidata everywhere else. An absence here is not evidence that no cult existed: a good number of figures never had one, and the entry above says so where that is the case.
now Kathmandu
Where Indra Jātrā is held for eight days each autumn — close to the last living cult of a god the Rigveda hymns more than any other.
Indra Jātrā, and close to the last living cult he has.
27.704, 85.307 · Wikidata Q6122177
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Indra, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- martial2
- malefic1
martial
- Commands Legionsno text cited
- Grants Victory in WarRigveda
malefic
1 mark
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
4 texts
Which texts say so?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 4 texts that names Indra, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
4 texts spanning roughly 1,300 years
Slays Vritra with the vajra and releases the pent waters — the central Rigvedic act.
Still the great fighter, and now enlisted: invoked for victory in the royal material and against the powers that afflict people in the domestic material. The dragon-slayer of the hymns being asked to intervene in a household quarrel is the beginning of the long descent this corpus's other Indra attestations complete.
The killing of Visvarupa, the three-headed son of Tvashtri, and the question it raises: the text says outright that Indra was free from that sin, which is a sentence nobody writes unless the sin is being discussed. A tradition working out what to do about a hero whose great victory looks like a crime is the beginning of the qualifying that the epics finish.
The king of the gods as a schemer with limited reach: he begs Karna's armour off him by a trick, fathers Arjuna, and spends much of the poem outmanoeuvred or afraid. The demotion is not stated anywhere — it is simply how he is written, which is the most complete form a demotion can take.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Opposes The Asuras
King of the devas against the asuras — the polarity Iran reverses.
Opposes Vritra
The central act of the Rigveda.
Identified with Perun
Indo-European storm gods, related by descent rather than by borrowing. Recorded by Wikidata (P460); not asserted by a text this corpus carries.
Identified with Jupiter
Cognate Indo-European sky-fathers, both wielding the thunderbolt.
Identified with Zeus
Zeus pater, Iuppiter and Dyaus Pitar are the same title inherited by three branches of one language family.
Identified with Thor
Thunder-wielders who fight the serpent — the Germanic and Indic reflexes of one pattern.
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Indra?
Is Indra the same as Perun?
What rank is Indra?
How else is Indra spelled?
What is Indra said to do?
How old is Indra?
Nearest in the corpus
If Indra is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Agni
God of Fire · Vedic
Fire as the mouth of the gods — the one who carries offerings upward, and so the messenger of the Vedic system.
Rudra
The Howler · Vedic
The fierce archer who sends disease and withholds it — addressed in the Rigveda with open fear, and later absorbed into Shiva.
The Asuras
Class of Beings · Vedic
In the earliest Rigveda a title of honour for the highest gods; by the later Vedic period, the demonic opponents of the devas. The same word, inverted within one tradition.
Varuna
Keeper of Cosmic Order · Vedic
Binder of the oath-breaker with his noose. The earliest hymns call him *asura*, using the word as an honorific, long before it turned demonic.
Yama
Lord of Death · Vedic
The first mortal to die, and so the king of the dead who judges those who follow. Azrael and Anubis hold the same office under other names.
Ravana
Rakshasa King · Vedic
The ten-headed antagonist of the Ramayana — a devout scholar, musician and ascetic whose downfall is a single act of pride.
The books behind Indra
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Rigveda
Anonymous; multiple rishi families · c. 1500-1200 BCE · Vedic Sanskrit
Read Rigveda in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Unknown author · Wikimedia file page
The Atharvaveda
Anonymous; attributed to the seers Atharvan and Angiras · c. 1000 BCE · Vedic Sanskrit
Read The Atharvaveda in full ↗The Shatapatha Brahmana
Anonymous; tr. Julius Eggeling · c. 800–600 BCE · Vedic Sanskrit
Read The Shatapatha Brahmana in full ↗The Mahabharata
Attributed to Vyasa; tr. Kisari Mohan Ganguli · c. 400 BCE – 400 CE · Sanskrit
Read The Mahabharata in full ↗
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.