Marutsमरुत्

The Maruts (मरुत्) are the storm gods of the Ṛgveda: a troop of brilliant young warriors, sons of Rudra and the dappled cow Prishni, who ride together across the sky in gold-decked chariots drawn by spotted mares. They are always plural and always identical — brothers of one age, none elder, none younger — armed with lightning spears and golden axes, their coming announced by wind, dust and torn trees. The hymns to them, more than thirty, are among the most exhilarating in the collection: mountains tremble at their passage, the earth shakes, and yet the same terrifying band are singers, whose storm-roar is a chant.

Companions of Indra

The Maruts are above all Indra's comrades, the war-band at the great god's side in his battle with the serpent Vritra. Their alliance is not untroubled: one hymn-cycle preserves a quarrel in which Indra claims sole credit for the serpent-slaying and the Maruts' seer Agastya must mediate between them. As Rudra's sons they are also called Rudras, and they share their father's double nature — bringers of destruction who are begged for healing remedies and gentle rain.

The Purāṇic birth-story

Classical mythology retold their origin. Diti, mother of the demons, undertook austerities to bear a son who would slay Indra; Indra entered her womb and cut the embryo into forty-nine pieces, and when the fragments wept he consoled them with the words mā rudata — do not weep — whence, the Purāṇas say, the name Maruts. Reconciled, the forty-nine became gods of the winds and Indra's companions, the tradition thus converting the demon-slayer's intended nemesis into his troop.

Afterlife

In later Hinduism the Maruts dwindled into wind spirits, their individuality absorbed by Vayu, and marut became a common word for wind. But they hold their place among the Thirty-Three of the old reckoning, and the Vedic image endures: the storm not as one god but as a company, young forever, arriving all at once.