Vajra (Indra’s Weapon)
Vajra, “the thunderbolt”
Vajra has other meanings too: see all meanings of Vajra.
The vajra, also called the vajrāyudha, is the divine weapon of Indra (Devendra), the king of the devas: his thunderbolt, which burns what it strikes and splits even mountain peaks. In the Vāmana Purāṇa Indra hurls it at the daitya Andhaka, and it burns Andhaka’s weapons and chariot to ash before Andhaka strikes it down with his fist; Indra hides it in the foam of the sea and so slays the dānava Namuci; the dānava Mura seizes it, with Indra’s throne and the elephant Airāvata, when he drives Indra out of Amarāvatī; and Kaśyapa Maharshi tells Indra that he struck the embryo in Diti‘s womb with it. The stotras of the Purāṇa raise it higher still: Bhagavān Śiva praises Bhagavān Vishṇu as the very form of the vajra of a thousand edges and a hundred edges; in the viśvarūpa of Bhagavān Vāmana the vajra dwells in the bones of his heart; and Vena, praising Bhagavān Śiva, calls him the vajra among weapons.
Against Andhaka
When the devas fought the daitya Andhaka and his hosts, Andhaka showered arrows fletched with peacock feathers on Devendra, and the two struck at each other with sharp arrows worked with gold. Then Devendra, shaken, whirled his vajra round and round and hurled it at Andhaka. Andhaka loosed fierce weapons against it, and the vajra burned them to ash, as fire burns dry trees. Seeing Indra’s vajra about to fall on him, the daityapati leapt down from his chariot, and the vajra burned up the chariot, the charioteer, the horses, the flag and the pole, and came on at Andhaka. With a hard blow of his fist the mighty Andhaka knocked the swiftly coming vajra to the ground and roared fearfully. He leapt upon Indra and felled the elephant Airāvata, and Indra jumped down from the sinking elephant, quickly took up his vajra and withdrew to Amarāvatī.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 10
Namuci and the sea-foam
Namuci, the youngest of the three mighty sons of Danu and Kaśyapa Maharshi, was stronger than Indra. When Indra raised his vajra to slay him, Namuci entered the chariot of Sūrya, and Indra could not slay him there. So Indra made a pact with him and gave him the vara (boon) that he would have no death by astras or śastras, the weapons that are thrown or held. Made unslayable, Namuci left Sūrya’s chariot and went to Pātāla. As he was bathing, he saw the foam of the sea; resolving “May what Indra said come true,” he took the foam in his hand and rubbed his mouth, nose, ears and eyes hard with it. But in that foam Indra had secretly created his vajra. Namuci’s nose, ears and eyes were split, and he died. Because that slaying of the danuja was against the rule, brahmahatyā (the pāpa of slaying a brāhmaṇa) clung to Indra, and he bathed in his own tīrtha and was freed of that pāpa.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 29
Seized by Mura
The dānava Mura, a son of Kaśyapa Maharshi and Danu, won from Brahmā the vara that whomever he touched with his hand, even an immortal, would die in battle. He challenged the devas, and when Indra would not fight him he pushed into Amarāvatī with his hand raised and demanded that Indra fight or leave. With no other way, Devendra left Amarāvatī and went down to Bhūloka, and the dānava seized Indra’s throne, the elephant Airāvata and the vajra. Indra, with his wife and children and the devas, built a city for himself on the southern bank of the Yamunā.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 34
The embryo in Diti’s womb
When the daitya Bali took away Indra‘s lordship of the three worlds, Indra went with the devas to Brahmā‘s abode, where his father Kaśyapa Maharshi sat among the ṛshis. Brahmā told him that it was the fruit of his own fault, and Kaśyapa named it: the pāpa of bhrūṇahatyā, of cutting into pieces the embryo in Diti‘s womb. Indra answered that the embryo was destroyed because Diti was impure. Kaśyapa said: “Because of the impurity the embryo came into dāsatva (a state of servitude). But you killed even that one with your vajra.” Indra asked for the prāyaścitta (expiation), and Brahmā, Kaśyapa and Vasishṭha counselled him to take refuge in Mādhava, the bearer of the śaṅkha, cakra and gadā.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 50
The vajra in the stotras
In the Sarva-pāpa-mocana stava, which Bhagavān Śiva made known in the kshetra of Vārāṇasī, he praises Bhagavān Vishṇu: “O Yajña-purusha! Enjoyer of the share of the yāga! You whose form is the vajra with a thousand edges and a hundred edges! Praṇāmas to you.”
When Bhagavān Vāmana received Bali‘s gift of three steps and took his form made of the whole world, the Purāṇa names what dwelt in each part of it: in the heart, Brahmā; and in the bones of the heart, the vajra weapon, Lakshmī and the oceans.
In the Saro Māhātmya, when Vena was freed by the Sthāṇu tīrtha and took a divine body, he praised Sthāṇu Bhagavān Śiva as the best of every kind: among trees the Arjuna, among mountains Himavat, among animals the tiger, among birds Vainateya, among serpents Ananta, among oceans the Kshīrasamudra, the ocean of milk, among devices the bow, among weapons the vajra, and among vratas satya, truth. Long before, when Vena forbade every yajña and every dāna in his kingdom, the munis had struck him down with blades of kuśa grass charged with mantras and made like the vajra.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 60, 65; Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 26
In the similes of the Purāṇa
The Purāṇa measures great blows by the vajra. When the daitya Kālanemi hurled his mighty gadā at Garuḍa, he hurled it as Mahendra hurls the vajra upon a mountain; when Garuḍa pushed down the headless trunk of Kālanemi, it fell as Indra struck Bala down from the sky to the earth with his vajra. And when Bhagavān Vishṇu cut off the head of the rākshasa Śrīdāma with the Sudarśana cakra on Mount Meru, Śrīdāma fell to the ground like a mountain peak struck off by the bearer of the vajra.
Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 47, 56
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 10, 29, 34, 47, 50, 56, 60, 65
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Saro Māhātmya, Chapter 26