Did Indra eat buffaloes?

Illustration/Devdutt Pattanaik

We live in times, where people want to ban goat sacrifice during the Muslim observance of Bakra Eid, on grounds of compassion. This overt attack on Islamic rituals is also a covert attack on subaltern Hindu practices - where goddesses are offered fish and meat.

A new pan-Indian Hinduism is being forged in North India that aligns with monastic, Jain and Vaishnava practices, disregarding the plural realities of India. This is a Sanatan Dharma that is vegetarian, marketed as more compassionate. It claims that by shunning meat one can purify onself and rise up the caste ladder. Such manipulative arguments have also been used to misinterpret Vedas by people claiming to be Sanskrit experts.

The interpretation of Rig Veda V.29.7-8 highlights a fundamental divide in how ancient texts can be understood. The same Sanskrit verses have produced two radically different readings - one historical and literal, the other symbolic and theological.

Western scholars such as Griffith and Max Muller approached the Rig Veda as a document of an ancient pastoral society. Using philology, comparative mythology, and traditional commentaries, they translated the words in their most common sense. In this reading, Agni roasts three hundred buffaloes (mahisha) for Indra, who drinks vast quantities of Soma before slaying the serpent-demon Vrtra. The verses are seen as reflecting the sacrificial rituals and warrior culture of the Vedic age.

Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati in the early 20th century rejected this interpretation. He argued that the Vedas contain eternal spiritual and scientific truths, not mythology, meat-eating, or intoxication. Drawing on Sanskrit etymology and verbal roots, he reinterpreted key words. Mahisha became mighty cloud formations, apacat referred to heating or evaporation, Soma became life-giving moisture, Indra became the Sun or Supreme Power, and Vrtra became the cloud barrier that blocks rain.

As a result, what Western scholars saw as a story of gods feasting and fighting became, for Dayanand, a poetic description of the water cycle. Solar energy heats water, clouds form, obstructions are removed, and rain sustains life. The hymn thus became a lesson in cosmic order rather than tribal mythology.

The larger question, however, is not linguistic but social. If sacred texts can be interpreted subjectively, who decides which interpretation is correct?

Historically, the most influential interpreters of Hindu texts have often come from literate, upper-caste, vegetarian communities. Dayanand Saraswati was a Brahmin who followed a vegetarian diet. Such values have frequently shaped how ancient passages are understood. References to meat, alcohol, and sacrifice are reinterpreted or allegorized to align with later ideals of purity. This is done by people who control political organisations.

Yet many Hindu communities, including pastoral, tribal, fishing, Dalit, and numerous regional caste groups, have traditionally consumed meat and followed different ritual practices. If interpretation is guided by present-day values rather than historical context, why should the preferences of vegetarian elites be considered more authentic than those of meat-eating Hindus?

The debate over Rig Veda V.29.7-8 is therefore about more than translation. It raises a deeper question of authority: who gets to define Hinduism, and whose values shape the meaning of its oldest texts? One approach sees the Vedas as historical records of an ancient world. The other sees them as timeless revelations whose meanings evolve with changing moral and spiritual ideals. The tension between these two approaches remains unresolved.

The author writes and lectures on the relevance of mythology in modern times. Reach him at devdutt.pattanaik@mid-day.com