Where the Rigveda gives Indra a warrior's temperament, Buddhist art and narrative recast him as Sakra, a devout and orderly heavenly king who exists chiefly to witness, protect and serve the Buddha rather than to fight for cosmic supremacy. Early Buddhist reliefs at sites such as Sanchi and Bharhut show Sakra descending a triple ladder of gold, silver and crystal alongside Brahma, escorting the Buddha back to earth after the Buddha spent a rains retreat teaching his mother in the Trayastrimsha heaven, an episode retold in art across South and Southeast Asia and one of the standard scenes of the Buddha's biographical cycle.
Sakra also appears at the Buddha's birth, at his enlightenment, and at his death, generally as a supporting, worshipful presence rather than an active agent, a marked change from the combative Vedic Indra who slays Vritra and drinks soma before battle. His attribute the vajra, the thunderbolt he wields against the drought serpent in Vedic myth, was carried into Buddhist iconography and given to Vajrapani, one of the Buddha's protector deities, whose name literally means thunderbolt in hand, so that Sakra's signature weapon effectively migrated to a new figure even as Sakra himself continued to reign as king of the Trayastrimsha gods. In Newar Buddhist and Hindu practice in the Kathmandu Valley, Sakra and Indra are treated as names for the same figure rather than separate deities, an equivalence that lets the old Vedic storm king continue to receive devotion within a thoroughly Buddhist ritual calendar.