The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.72

v1.c11.72

The word *manyu* means wrath, and the divinity is, therefore, the personification of wrath. Wrath is essentially one of the frightful aspects of nature, and the association, therefore, is most appropriate. For a perfect myth, it was necessary that all the elements calculated to excite the feeling of the terrible should be put together, and this has been accomplished in the conception of Rudra. The transition from fierceness and wrath to the type of the great destroyer which Śiva assumes as the third member of the Hindu triad of the creator, the preserver, and destroyer, was easy, and we find it so completed in the Purāṇas.