rain and thunder

It’s the season for rain here and Mumbai is under water once again. I am resigned to a rain drenched day indoors, hoping for the sun and some cheer tomorrow. However there was another time and another place when the rain and thunder was cause for much joy as the devas vanquished the asuras amidst torrential downpour…

A long long time ago, in the kingdom of the gods, the Asuras had struck terror. They wrecked homes, burnt down the palaces and defeated the gods in every battle. They set every living thing, every home and every forest in heaven and on earth on fire.The gods were forced to turn to Brahma, their creator and saviour. Brahma asked Indra, the king of all gods to take action.

Indra agreed to battle the Asuras but he could not do that without help from Bramha and for that he sat in tapasya. Brahma, as is his nature, was pleased by his prayers and blessed him with a boon. “Dear Indra”, he said, “victory will be yours”. However it would not be a battle easily won because the weapon that would win him the battle had to be shaped out of the sage Dadich’s bones. In short, Indra would have to convince Dadich to self destruct and lend him his bones that would be shaped into the war-winning weapon.

Dadich, despite his thunderous name (or perhaps because of it, Da-Di-Da-Di is supposed to be the sound of thunder), turned out to be an easy ally. His bones were made available and Twashtri, the artisan of the gods shaped the vajra for Indra.

The vajra cleaved the skies in a flash of lightning. The sky opened up, unleashing its fury in the form of rain. The Asuras were no match for the devas who used thunder, lightning and rain to drive fear into the hearts of their enemies.

Vajra in Sanskrit is thunderstorm. It is also close in pronounciation to Vadha or Vadhar which used to mean fierce wind and now (in Marathi) means breeze. In German, the word Wetar, Anglo Saxon, Weter and English Weather -- originally all meant the same. They meant a change in atmosphere due to thunderstorm. Today weather has come to mean all states of air or climate. The vajra has come a long way...