Chapter 98 — Vritra and the Horse Sacrifice

After Rama accepted Bharata's counsel, Lakshmana spoke.

“There is another great rite,” he said. “Let the ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice, please you. Its power to cleanse is told in the story of Indra.”

Rama did not immediately accept the proposal. He asked Lakshmana to tell the whole account: how Vritra had been killed, and how the sacrifice had brought its result. Lakshmana answered as a brother giving counsel, but his counsel opened into an older divine history.

He began with Vritra, a mighty daitya ruler. Vritra governed the whole earth with knowledge of dharma. Under his rule the land yielded roots and fruit without cultivation. Yet he desired severe tapas. He placed his eldest son in authority and withdrew to practice austerity so fiercely that the gods felt its pressure.

Lakshmana did not describe Vritra as a creature made only for defeat. He had a vast body, a realm of abundance, gratitude, discernment, and a determination to practice austerity. That fullness made Indra's fear more than a simple battle alarm: Vritra's growing force threatened to place the worlds under a power the gods could not master.

Vritra left his eldest son in charge and went into the forest. His tapas became so intense that it scorched the gods with its force. Indra felt himself unable to confront him. He went to Vishnu and spoke not of Vritra's cruelty but of his power: Vritra was strong, righteous in conduct, and advancing through ascetic discipline. If that discipline continued, Indra said, the three worlds would remain under Vritra's command.

Vishnu answered that he was bound to Vritra by friendship, but would show a way. He would divide his force: one part would enter Indra, one the vajra—the thunderbolt Indra carried—and one the earth. With that force, Indra could kill Vritra.

Vishnu did not take the weapon and strike in Indra's place. The force was apportioned, and Indra would be the one to use it.

The gods went with Indra into the forest where Vritra practiced. He shone with such force that they were afraid even to approach him. At last Indra raised the vajra and threw it at Vritra's head. The blow burned with the terror of the fire at the end of time. Vritra fell.

The shock of the blow passed through the worlds. Indra had done what the gods had asked and what Vishnu had enabled. But the death did not settle into a simple victory song. The consequence found Indra at once.

But Indra did not leave the field in triumph. Brahmahatya, the personified stain of killing a brahmin, followed him and settled upon his body. Indra lost his senses and withdrew to the edge of the world. With Indra absent, drought took hold: earth grew dry, forests withered, rivers and lakes lost their flow, and living beings suffered.

The victory had therefore not restored the world at once. The gods had removed Vritra, but the killing remained attached to Indra. The drought made that consequence public: the loss of a ruler was felt in soil, water, animals, and the frightened lives that depended on rain.

The gods remembered Vishnu's instruction. With priests and rishis they found Indra and performed the ashvamedha for his cleansing. When it ended, Brahmahatya asked where she was to dwell. The gods told her to divide herself four ways; the portions fell to full rivers, trees, women during menstruation, and those who knowingly kill innocent brahmins.

Lakshmana did not remove that allocation from the account. The important turn is that the burden cannot remain whole upon Indra if the world is to recover.

Indra was freed from the fever of the stain. The world grew calm again, and the gods honored the completed sacrifice.

“Such is the power of the horse sacrifice,” Lakshmana told Rama. “Perform it, great king.”

The story offered Rama a precedent, not a painless assurance. A rite had restored Indra after a killing that had left the worlds parched; Lakshmana placed that example before his brother as the argument for an ashvamedha.