Trita was a Vedic god whose name meant “the third.” His main importance comes from sharing the same achievements with Indra. Some scholars say that he was Indra’s double, but a more likely interpretation is that Trita was already fading from prominence by the time of the Vedic hymns. That is, Trita represented an earlier mythology. He was known in the earliest Avestan (Persian) mythology. Indra was given Trita’s heroic deeds: the slaying of the monsters Vri- tra, Vala, and Visvarupa, son of Tvashthri.
One story in the Rigveda told how Ekata (first), Dvita (second), and Trita (third) went to draw water. The two threw Trita in the well and sealed it with a wheel. Trita composed a hymn (Rigveda 9.34.4) and prepared a soma sacrifice (yaga) in the well. (It may be a type of Cain and Abel story of brother[s]’s envy and attempted murder, but it is only a fragment.)
