Note 2 — Chapter XII · Assassination.

A favourite allegory in the Rig-Veda, connected with Indra’s power over the elements, is his war with the demon Vritra. “With his vast destroying thunderbolt Indra struck the darkling mutilated Vritra. As the trunks of the trees are felled by the axe, so lies Vritra prostrate on the earth. The waters carry off the nameless body of Vritra, tossed into the midst of the never-stopping, never-resting currents. The foe of Indra has slept a long darkness.”—“Rig-Veda,” Sukta xxxii.