The Story of Indra

Illustrations by Lehla Eldridge

This is a story from the Upanishads about the king-god Indra.

Now, it happened at this time that a great monster had enclosed all the waters of the earth, so there was a terrible drought, and the world was in a very bad condition. Indra was wondering what to do about this awful situation, and then he remembered that he had a big box of thunderbolts and that all he had to do was drop a big thunderbolt on the monster and blow him up. So he got out his biggest thunderbolt, and threw it at the monster, scoring a direct hit. All the waters flowed again, and the world was refreshed, and Indra said, “What a great boy am I”.

So, thinking that he deserved a reward for such a brilliant act, Indra went up to the cosmic mountain which was the central mountain of the world, and decided to build himself a great big palace. He ordered the main carpenter of the gods to set to work straight away, and very soon the carpenter and all his workers had built a pretty reasonable palace.

But every time Indra came to inspect the palace and check on its progress, he had bigger ideas about how splendid and grand it should be.

The carpenter started to get fed up with this, and worried that there would be no end to Indra’s desires. “We are both immortal”, he thought to himself, “and I can just imagine being stuck here forever, caught for eternity, building his palace”. So the carpenter decided to go to Brahma, the creator god, to complain.

Brahma sits on a lotus, the symbol of divine energy and divine grace. The lotus grows from the navel of Vishnu, who is the sleeping god, whose dream is the universe. So the carpenter went to the edge of the great lotus pond of the universe, and told his story to Brahma. Brahma said, "You go home. I will fix things”. Brahma got off his lotus, and knelt down to address the sleeping Vishnu. Vishnu waved his hand in the air and said “O.K. I’ll take care of it”.

Next morning, at the gate of the palace which was being built, there appeared a beautiful blue-black boy. He was surrounded by children, who were all admiring his beauty and wondering who he was. The porter at the gate went running to tell Indra, who said “Well, don’t just stand there, show the boy in”. The boy was brought in to where Indra, the king-god was sitting on his throne.

“Welcome young man”, said Indra. “What has brought you here”.

“Well”, said the boy with a voice like thunder rolling on the horizon, “I have been told that you are building a palace such as no Indra before you has ever built”.

Indra said ”What! Indras before ME! What are you talking about”?

The boy said, “Indras before you. Oh yes, I have seen them come and go, come and go. Just think, Vishnu sleeps in the cosmic ocean, and the lotus of the universe grows from his navel. On the lotus sits Brahma, the creator. Brahma opens his eyes and a world comes into being, ruled by an Indra. Brahma closes his eyes and a world goes out of being. The life of a Brahma is four hundred and thirty two thousand years. When he dies the lotus dies too, and another lotus is formed, and another Brahma. Then think of the galaxies beyond galaxies in infinite space, each  one a lotus with a Brahma sitting on it, opening his eyes, closing his eyes. There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops of water in all the oceans of the world, or the grains of sand on the beaches, but no-one could count all those Brahmas, let alone all those Indras”.

While the boy was talking, an army of ants paraded across the floor. The boy laughed when he saw them. By this time Indra’s hair was almost standing on end. “W...w...w... why are you laughing”? he asked the boy. The boy pointed to the ants, and said “ They all used to be Indras, you know. Through many lifetimes they rise from the lowest conditions to the highest illumination. And then they drop their thunderbolt on a monster, and they think, 'What a great boy am I', and down they go again”.

Before Indra could protest, an old man walked into the palace. He was naked except for a loincloth and was carrying an umbrella made from banana leaves. On his chest was a little circle of hair, and half the hairs in the middle had dropped out. Before Indra got a chance to say anything, the boy spoke to the old man.

“Who are you”? he asked “What is your name? Where do you come from? Where is your house? And what is the meaning of the funny pattern of hairs on your chest”?

“Well”, said the old man, “my name is Hairy. I don’t have a house. Life is too short for that. I just use this umbrella for shelter. I  meditate on Vishnu’s feet, and think of eternity and how quickly time passes. You know, every time an Indra dies, a world disappears - in a flash, just like that. And every time an Indra dies, one hair drops out of this circle on my chest. Half the hairs are gone already. Pretty soon they will all be gone. Life is short. Why build a house”?

Then the boy and the old man suddenly disappeared from the throne-room. Indra was left sitting there, completely shocked. He called for the carpenter and said, “I’m not going to carry on with building this palace. You are dismissed.” The carpenter was very happy to hear this news, as he had got his wish. The boy was Vishnu, and the old man was Shiva, the creator and destroyer of the world, in disguise. They had come to teach Indra that he was simply a god of history. He didn’t run the whole show.

However, Indra was so upset that he decided straight away to go off and become a yogi, like the old man Hairy, and just sit at the feet of Vishnu and meditate. He thought that the only way to sort things out was to turn his back on his old life. He was also very embarrassed and full of shame and wanted to hide away for a while. It seemed too difficult to carry on now that his pride had such an enormous dent in it.

But Indra had a beautiful and loving wife called Indrani who, when she heard of his plan, went to see the priest of the gods to help her to stop him going.

“Don’t worry”, said the priest. “I’ll sort him out”.

Indrani and the priest sat down with Indra and the priest said to Indra,

“Now listen to me. You are in the position of king. You are a manifestation of Brahma in the field of time. This is a high privilege. Appreciate it, honour it, and deal with life as though you were what you really are. Also you have a  wife who loves you. Don’t turn away from love and family, because in love you will also find the radiant mystery of Brahma”.

On hearing this, Indra realised that the priest was right. He gave up his idea of wandering off alone, and became a good and wise king. He didn’t need a great big magnificent palace anymore, but he learnt that by living truthfully and being loving to his wife and family and treating his subjects with compassion and respect, he was as near to enlightenment as if he’d spent the rest of his life meditating at Vishnu’s feet.

THE END

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The illustrations used in this story are © Copyright Lehla Eldridge 2000 and may not be reproduced without permission of the artist or The Physik Garden.