Indra dominates the Rigveda: roughly a quarter of its hymns invoke him, drinking soma and shattering Vritra, the serpent holding back the waters, releasing rivers and light. He is boisterous, enormous, and unmistakably a warrior god for a people with chariots. His steep later demotion — humiliated by Krishna, outranked by gods who barely appear in the Rigveda — is preserved in the texts rather than erased, which is why the Indian traditions offer such an unusually legible record of religious change.