Indra and Vrtra

[Venkatraman.Chandrasekaran at NOKIA.COM]

Dear Jaldhar,
   Sorry to interject in the middle of your story on this topic...

> Sri Jaldhar Vyas wrote:
>David Frawley is another one of those kooks who conjure up fantasies out
>of a "vedic" hat.  This is also demonstrably false.  Not only is there no
>support from the bhashyas of any Acharya (though they do mention another
>natural phenomenoas I will explain later) it is a geological fact that the
>Ice Age never got as far south as India.

   There are several instances in our puranas where a natural force or
element is treated as a God or demon and interaction between the
hero of the story and the force is represented as that between two
humans. For eg., in Ramayana, Sri Rama conquers the Lord of Ocean by
threatening him to surrender without risking his arrows. If this be
the case, can you please tell why you reject the idea of ice age being
terminated by Indra (again he being God of rains)...?
   The purport of representing a natural force as God or demon in our
ancient texts is in my understanding to show that all chit entities
live inter-dependently on these natural elements... and Gods and some
super-humans (r~shis like Yagnavalkya) could control these natural
forces by their penance though still these natural forces are only
elements and not to be taken as a chit entity. So we can't expect
the Acharyas to explicitly tell in their bhashyas, for eg., that 
the Lord of the Ocean mentioned by Valmiki was in fact the Ocean itself..
   On a slightly different note, for eg., in North India, Ganga maatha 
is said to be riding Crocodile and people revere crocodile as a vaahana 
of Ganga Devi. Is it probably because there is a constant fear and awe 
at these reptiles while crossing the river?

   Thanks,
   chandrasekaran.