Ahalya - Hints of A Relationship With Indra

Hints of A Relationship With Indra

The Brahmanas (9th to 6th centuries BCE) are the oldest scriptures to reveal the relationship between Ahalya and Indra in the "subrahmanya formula", a chant used by Vedic priests "at the beginning of a sacrifice to invite the main participants: Indra, the gods and the Brahmins" (priests). The Jaiminiya Brahmana and the Sadvimsha Brahmana from the Samaveda tradition, the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Taittiriya Brahmana from the Yajurveda tradition and two Shrautasutras (Latyayana and Drahyayana) invoke Indra, the "lover of Ahalya ... O Kaushika, who calls himself Gautama". The Samaveda tradition identifies her as Maitreyi, who the commentator Sayana (died 1387) explains is "the daughter of Mitra".

In the subrahmanya formula, Ahalya does not have a husband. The Sadvimsha Brahmana does not explicitly state that Ahalya has a husband, although Kaushika (interpreted by most scholars as Ahalya's husband) is present in the story and his relationship to her can be inferred through Indra's adoption of the Brahmin's form to "visit" Ahalya. Renate Söhnen-Thieme, research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, feels that the Kaushika of the Sadvismha Brahmana is the same individual described as cursing Indra in the 5th- to 4th-century BCE epic Mahabharata (discussed below in "Curse and redemption"). The Shatapatha Brahmana's commentator, Kumarila Bhatta (c. 700), reasons that the Ahalya–Indra myth is an allegory for the Sun (Indra) taking away the shade of night (Ahalya).

Edward Washburn Hopkins, an American indologist, took a somewhat more literal approach. He interpreted the Ahalya of the subrahmanya formula not as a woman, but as "yet unploughed land", which Indra makes fertile.