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64 Kasyapa. In another instance, Sukra, a god "sullied by immoral- ity," abducted Tara, the beautiful wife of Indra's charioteer. "The Illustrious Rudra" and other gods then came to the aid of the aggrieved husband. There ensued "a terrible battle, destructive of gods and demons, on account of Tara." In spite of their awesome weapons, the gods were bested and had to seek refuge with "the Prime Deity." Thereupon the grandfather of the gods himself came to Earth, and put an end to the fighting by returning Tara to her husband. Then Tara gave birth to a son "whose beauty over- clouded the celestials .... Filled with suspicion, the gods de- manded to know who the true father was: the lawful husband or the abductor-god." She proclaimed that the boy was the son of Soma, "Celestial Immortality"; and she named him Budah. But all that was in times yet to come; in the olden days the gods battled among themselves for more important causes: supremacy and rule over the Earth and its resources. With so many offspring of Kasyapa by diverse wives and concubines, as well as the de- scendants of the other olden gods, conflict soon became inevitable. The dominance of the Adityas was especially resented by the Asu- ras, elder gods whose mothers bore them to Kasyapa before the Adityas were born. Bearing a non-Aryan name of a clear Near Eastern origin (being akin to names of the supreme gods of As- syria. Babylon, and Egypt—Ashur, Asar, Osiris), they eventually assumed in the Hindu traditions the role of the evil gods, the "de- mons." Jealousy, rivalry, and other causes of friction finally led to war when the Earth, "which at first produced food without cultiva- tion," succumbed to a global famine. The gods, the texts reveal, sustained their immortality by drinking Soma, an ambrosiac that was brought down to Earth from the Celestial Abode by an eagle and was drunk mixed with milk. The "kine" ("cow-cattle") of the gods also provided the gods' favored "sacrifices" of roasted meat. But a time came when all these necessities became scarcer and scarcer. The Satapatha Brahmana describes the events that fol- lowed: The gods and the Asuras, both sprung from the Father of Gods and Men, were contending for superiority. The gods van- quished the Asuras; yet afterwards, these once more harassed them. ... The gods and the Asuras, both of them sprung from the Father of Gods and Men, were [again] contending for superiority. This THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN