Airavat

Published on 19th October, 2018, in the Economic Times. The Vedic Indra did not ride elephants. He rode chariots drawn by horses. The earliest reference to elephant-riding Indra comes to us from Buddhist texts and Buddhist art, such as the one at the Bhaja caves on Mumbai-Pune highway, which is roughly 2000 years old. This idea was incorporated into Puranic tradition, as the old Vedic ways waned and a new form of temple based Hinduism arose, roughly 1500 years ago. The chariot-riding Vedic Indra, described in Rig Vedic hymns, was a warrior-god who killed many demons such as Vritra and who was invoked in yagna ..