Vasus- Hindu GroupCollective"Attendants of Indra"

The Eight Elementals

The Vasus are eight Vedic deities who embody the fundamental forces of the natural world: sky and earth, wind and fire, and the celestial bodies above. They serve as attendants of Indra and the Rigveda invokes them collectively as givers of wealth. But their fame rests less on their celestial duties than on a crime that brought them crashing to earth.

The Theft of Nandini

At the instigation of Dyaus's wife, who desired the cow's milk for a mortal friend, the eight Vasus descended to the hermitage of the sage Vasishtha and stole his wish-fulfilling cow Nandini. The enraged sage cursed all eight to be born as mortals, stripped of their divine glory. The Vasus pleaded for mercy, and Vasishtha relented partially: seven of them would be freed from mortal life shortly after birth. But Dyaus, who had actually carried out the theft, would endure a full human lifespan on earth.

Sons of Ganga

To fulfill the curse with minimal suffering, the Vasus approached the goddess Ganga and asked her to be their mother. She agreed and descended to earth, where she married King Shantanu of Hastinapura. Seven times she walked to the riverbank with a newborn in her arms, and seven times the waters closed over a divine child returning home. Shantanu watched in anguish but had promised never to question her actions. When the eighth child was born, he broke his silence and stayed her hand. Ganga handed him the child, named the boy Devavrata, and vanished into the river. This last son, the incarnation of Dyaus condemned to a full mortal span, would grow into Bhishma, whose terrible vow and decades of service to the Kuru throne all trace back to that night a group of gods stole a sage's cow.