A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1529

c5.1529

RUDRA. ‘A howler or roarer; terrible.’ In the Vedas Rudra has many attributes and many names. He is the howling terrible god, the god of storms, the father of the Rudras or Maruts, and is sometimes identified with the god of fire. On the one hand he is a destructive deity who brings diseases upon men and cattle, and upon the other he is a beneficent deity supposed to have a healing influence. These are the germs which afterwards developed into the god Siva. It is worthy of note that Rudra is first called Mahā-deva in the White Yajur-veda. As applied to the god Siva, the name of Rudra generally designates him in his destructive character. In the Brihad-āranyaka Upanishad the Rudras are “ten vital breaths (prāna) with the heart (manas) as eleventh.” In the Vishnu Purāna the god Rudra is said to have sprung from the forehead of Brahmā, and at the command of that god to have separated his nature into male and female, then to have multiplied each of these into eleven persons, some of which were white and gentle, others black and furious. Elsewhere it is said that the eleven Rudras were sons of Kasyapa and Surabhi, and in another chapter of the same Purāṇa it is represented that Brahmā desired to create a son, and that Rudra came into existence as a youth. He wept and asked for a name. Brahmā gave him the name of Rudra; but he wept seven times more, and so he obtained seven other names: Bhava, Sarva, Īsāna, Pasupati, Bhīma, Ugra, and Mahā-deva. Other of the Purāṇas agree in this nomenclature. These names are sometimes used for Rudra or Siva himself, and at others for the seven manifestations of him, sometimes called his sons. The names of the eleven Rudras vary considerably in different books.