Verse 23

²³Speaking so to one another, king, out of a wish to know dharma, those two of great strength, Indra and Vrtra, lords of battle, went on fighting. ²⁴Vrtra, the tamer of enemies, swung his club of black iron and sent it, terrible, at Indra with his left hand, good sir. ²⁵But the god cut through both at once, Vrtra's club and his hand like a young elephant's trunk, with his hundred-jointed bolt. ²⁶With both arms cut off at the root the demon shone, streaming blood, like a mountain with its wings cut away, fallen from the sky, struck down by the bearer of the bolt. ²⁷The Daitya set his lower jaw on the earth and his upper jaw in the sky, his mouth deep as space, his terrible tongue licking out,

²⁸his fangs like Time itself, as though he were swallowing the three worlds, his body past all measure, throwing the mountains aside by force, ²⁹grinding the earth under his feet like the king of mountains gone walking. He came upon the bearer of the bolt and swallowed him, mount and all, ³⁰great in breath and great in strength, as a great snake swallows an elephant. Seeing him swallowed by Vrtra, the gods with the Prajapatis and the great sages cried out in despair: Alas, this is a disaster.