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69 The gods themselves with awe were stilled And stood aghast: and terror filled the universal world. . . . The Thunderbolts hurled by Indra, "forged by the master hand of Tvashtri" of divine iron, were complex, blazing missiles: Who the arrowy shower could stand. Discharged by Indra's red right hand— The thunderbolts with hundred joints. The iron shafts with thousand points. Which blaze and hiss athwart the sky, Oe at Swift to their mark unerring fly. And lay the proudest foeman low. With sudden and resistless blow. Whose very sound can put to flight The fools who dare the Thunderer's might. Was sounded by the clang and boom of Indra's iron shower: Pierced, cloven, crushed, with horrid yell The dying demon headlong fell down from his cloud-built tower. Fallen to the ground "as trunks of trees that axe had felled." Vritra lay prostrate; but though "footless and handless, still he challenged Indra." Then Indra gave him the coup-de-grace, and "smote him with his bolt between the shoulders." Indra's victory was complete; but as Fate would have it, the fruits of victory were not his alone. As he was claiming the throne of Kasyapa, his father, old doubts surfaced concerning his true par- enthood. It was a fact that upon his birth his mother had hid him from Kasyapa's wrath. Why? Was there truth to the rumors that his true father was his own elder brother, Tvashtri? The Vedas lift the veil of mystery only partly. They tell, how- ever, that Indra, great god that he was, did not rule alone: he had to share powers with Agni and Surya his brothers—just as Zeus had to share dominions with his brothers Hades and Poseidon. The Missiles of Zeus and Indra Unerringly the guided missiles hit their target: And soon the knell of Vritra's doom