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The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s11: § 11. The Maruts or Rudras

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c17.s11

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§ 11. The Maruts or Rudras

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The Maruts share in the greatness of Indra, and, therefore, they have a prominent place in the Rigveda, thirty three-hymns being exclusively theirs, while they share seven with Indra, and one each with Pūṣan and Agni. They are essentially a troupe, thrice seven⁸ or thrice sixty⁹ in number, the children of Rudra, whence they are called Rudras or Rudriyas: their mother is Pṛśni, or a cow, and they come with cows with distended udders: the cows can scarcely be anything other than the swollen rain clouds. Agni is also said to have produced them, and they are born of the laughter of the lightning. Vāyu also is said to have produced them from the womb of heaven, and they are also sons of heaven, they have the ocean for their mother or are self-born. They are brothers of equal age, of equal birth, of one mind and one abode. They have as their bride the goddess Rodasī, and are connected with the goddesses Indrāṇī and Sarasvatī.

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⁸ RV. i. 133. 6.

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⁹ RV. viii. 96. 8.

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The home of the Maruts is in the three heavens or in the three worlds. Their brightness is one of their leading features: hence they are directly called fires. They are also intimately connected with the lightning, which serves as their spears. On their feet they wear anklets, golden ornaments on their breasts, golden helmets on their heads, they carry the lightning in their hands, and spears on their shoulders. They have also axes of gold, while from Rudra they borrow the bow and arrow, and once even from Indra the thunderbolt. They ride in golden cars drawn by tawny steeds, which are often described as spotted, and called *pṛṣatīs*. But they are also said to have yoked the winds as steeds to the poles of their cars.

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The Maruts are great, young, unageing, terrible like wild beasts, but playful like children or calves: they are lions or iron-tusked boars or black swans. The noise of their onset is the roaring of the wind or thunder: they rend the mountains, crush the forests, and whirl up the dust with their steeds, which are the winds. They bring rain with them in their train: a river, the Marudvṛdhā, bears trace of their power, but the rain they send is as usual sometimes called honey or milk or ghee. The rain which they send comes with the thunder and the lightning. Though they avert heat, nevertheless they are also said to bring the light, to dispel the darkness, and like many other gods they hold apart the two worlds. They sing a song, or blow a pipe, and their singing strengthens Indra for the slaying of Vṛtra. Sometimes they appear as drinkers of Soma, and even as pious sacrificers, since they are singers.

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The main deed of the Maruts is the rendering of aid to Indra in the slaying of Vṛtra, though they are mentioned also as aiding Indra's predecessor, Trita, in this feat. Occasionally in place of aiding Indra only, the overthrow of Vṛtra and the winning of the cows are attributed to them. They are styled sometimes sons or brothers of Indra.¹ But two or three times they appear as having left him at the critical moment, and Indra seems to have sought in revenge to slay them, and to have been appeased with difficulty by Agastya,² in connexion with a sacrifice which that seer was anxious to offer to them.

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¹ In the Brāhmaṇas as rain-gods they rank, on the analogy of agriculturists, as the common folk of the gods (e. g. PB. xviii. 1. 14.; xix. 14. 1; xxi. 14. 3), whom Indra, as a sovereign, shamelessly plunders (PB. xxi. 1. 1 ff.).

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² RV. i. 165, 170; Pischel, *Ved. Stud.* i. 59; Hertel, VOJ. xviii. 153; v. Schroeder, *Mysterium und Mimus*, pp. 91 ff.; Oldenberg, *Ṛgveda-Noten*, i. 170; Keith, *Sanskrit Drama*, pp. 15, 19 f.

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Their connexion with Rudra is also distinctly marked in the deprecation of their wrath, which is several times expressed, and their cow- and man-slaying bolt is referred to, as is that of Rudra.¹ They are said to send evil and to have the wrath of the serpent. From Rudra again comes the fact that they are entreated to bear from the Sindhu, the seas, the mountains, the Asiknī, healing remedies, and by rain they are said to bestow medicine, which is no doubt rain like the Jalāṣa of Rudra. From the waters comes no doubt their purifying power.

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¹ RV. vii. 56. 9, 17; 57. 4; i. 171. 1; 172. 2; 64. 8, 9.

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In the ritual they differ from Vāyu in their relation to the Soma sacrifice, as they have a place at the midday and the evening pressings, while the morning pressing alone is the place for Vāyu, and they play a considerable part in the four-month offerings. It has been sought to show that their cult is specially connected with the Viçvāmitra family and is not a subject of much interest to the Bharadvājas and other priestly families, the Vasiṣṭhas for instance being mainly concerned with the relations of Indra and Vāyu; but this theory is not supported by the references in the various books which seem to show throughout a recognition of Indra's relations to the Maruts.²

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² Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* iii. 325, 326.

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For the nature of the Maruts two explanations alone are really plausible: the most natural³ is that they are the deities of the winds in their aspect as bearing the storm clouds: the mere winds are inadequate to explain the constant association of the gods with fire and lightning. The native tradition is that they are the winds,⁴ and the word in post-Vedic literature simply means wind. The name itself throws no light on the conception, as, though the root may be set down as *mar*, it is wholly doubtful what that root is to mean: with the normal view of the nature of the gods, it is taken either as to shine or as to crush, according as it is believed to denote the Maruts as radiant gods, or as the winds which crush the woods. The alternative view is sometimes based on the etymology of *mar* as to die,⁵ and the Maruts are claimed as the spirits of the dead, conceived as storming along in the winds, and then merely as the winds. The view has the support of Kuhn, Benfey,⁶ E. H. Meyer,⁷ v. Schroeder,⁸ and Hillebrandt,⁹ but the last alone has made any serious attempt to prove his thesis. He calls attention to the fact that the Maruts are sometimes treated in a manner analogous to Rudra or the Manes. Thus, after an offering to Indra on one occasion, a quite separate offering is made to them,¹⁰ and the reason alleged is that they are not eaters of the oblation as gods proper are;¹¹ they also receive an offering of an embryo, which is normally not fit for sacrifice, they appear as destroying offspring,¹ as seeking to injure the sacrifice,² as barring men from advancing through their realm of the air.³ Moreover, they are often regarded as like birds, and birds are often the souls of the dead.⁴ Hillebrandt lays no stress on the etymology of the word, and even seems to think that the derivation may be from the Dravidian word *marutta*, a medicine man,⁵ but, in view of the late date at which the Dravidian word is known, this is quite an impossible and unscientific suggestion. But the main ground of this thesis cannot obviously be taken seriously. The connexion with Rudra explains the special treatment of the Maruts at certain sacrifices, while, for the most part, as connected with Indra, they have an honourable share in offerings. The connexion with birds is most natural of the winds, and needs no reference to the souls of the dead, and often they have connexion with the Ādityas.⁶

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³ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 81.

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⁴ Yāska, Nir. xi. 13.

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⁵ Leumann (*Buddha und Mahāvīra*, p. 11) gives *mās-mṛt*, man-slayer, by dissimilation *māvṛt*, Latin *mavort*, *mart*.

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⁶ On RV. i. 6. 4.

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⁷ *Indog. Myth.* i. 218.

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⁸ VOJ. ix. 248, 249.

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⁹ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 317; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 102 ff.; Arbman, *Rudra*, pp. 309 ff.

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¹⁰ PGS. ii. 15.

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¹¹ ÇB. iv. 5. 2. 16, 17. The face, according to Hillebrandt, is to be averted at an offering given in KÇS. xviii. 4. 23 ff., but see Oldenberg, GN. 1915, p. 388, n. 3. No Svāhā call at the offering, ÇB. iv. 5. 2. 17.

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¹ TB. i. 6. 2, 2.

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² TB. i. 3. 4. 4.

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³ AB. i. 10. 2; TS. vii. 1. 5. 4.

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⁴ BDS. ii. 14. 10. Arbman (*op. cit.*, p. 309) actually denies that gods have bird forms, forgetting the sungod as a bird, Indra’s bird form, &c.

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⁵ *ZDMG.* xxiii. 518.

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⁶ RV. x. 77. 8; i. 106. 2; TS. ii. 3. 1. 5; TA. v. 4. 8; their names are Çukrajyotis, Citrajyotis, Satyajyotis, Jyotiṣmant, &c., VS. xxvii. 80; ÇB. ix. 3. 1. 26; as rays and months, PB. xiv. 12. 9.

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Arbman,⁷ developing and improving upon a suggestion of Hillebrandt’s⁸ regarding the double sense of the Maruts as the storm winds and also the hosts of Rudra, representing various aspects of his nature, holds that in the Rigveda the Maruts are the Rudras, while after that the Rudras become a host of demons, quite different from the Maruts, late Vedic times forgetting the connexion of Rudras and Maruts. This is no doubt an exaggerated view. The process is not one of sudden or vehement change; the extension of Rudra’s nature carries with it the development of the character of his troupes; the Rudras are wider in character than the Maruts *per se* would have been. But it is a complete error to treat the Rudras as demons, because they are destructive and sometimes act in an evil way as demons might do;⁹ equally on this theory most Vedic gods might be made out to be demons. The contention that the Rudras are demons, because Rudra is lord of beings, Bhūtapati,¹⁰ is wholly untenable; Bhūta does not, as suggested, in the Vedic literature, until possibly a very late period, bear the sense ‘demons’, but it denotes ‘beings’ pure and simple.

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⁷ *Rudra*, pp. 18, n. 1, 162 ff.

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⁸ *Ved. Myth.* iii. 301.

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⁹ TS. vii. 1. 5. 4; MS. i. 8. 4 (Asuras in ÇB. ii. 4. 3. 2 ff.). In TS. vi. 1. 1. 1; TA. v. 8. 4 ff. the Rudras are clearly not demons.

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¹⁰ AV. xi. 2. 1; cf. AB. iii. 33; see Chap. 12, § 5; 21, § 2.

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