Birth of the Maruts (Matsya Purāṇa)

The Maruts are forty-nine storm devas who form the company of Indra. The Matsya Purāṇa tells how they were born. Diti vowed to have a son who would kill Indra. Indra went into her womb and cut the embryo into forty-nine pieces. Each piece became a Marut. They did not become Indra’s enemies. They became his companions in war and in worship.

Diti’s vow

Diti was the wife of the great Prajāpati Kaśyapa and the mother of the daityas. She was full of grief and anger at the death of her sons in the wars between the devas and the asuras. She decided to have a son strong enough to destroy Indra himself, the king of the devas, who had caused so much death among the daitya clans.

She went to Kaśyapa and asked him for a vara: a son who would kill Indra. Kaśyapa owed a husband’s duty to a devoted wife, and he agreed. But he set one condition. Diti must keep herself in complete ritual purity for one hundred years, because only such austerity could bring forth a son of that power. Diti accepted and began her vrata (vow).

Indra’s plan

Indra, lord of the three worlds, saw with his divine sight what Diti had begun and what it meant for him. He decided that this embryo must never be born. To oppose Diti openly would have broken the rules of dharma, so he chose a quieter way. He took a subtle form and entered Diti’s womb, meaning to destroy the embryo from inside. Once there, he waited for Diti to slip in her ritual purity, because an impurity would give him his opening.

Diti kept her austerities with deep focus for almost the whole hundred years. But near the very end of her vrata, when the goal was almost reached, she lay down to sleep at an unlucky time without first washing her feet. This is counted as a break in ritual purity. That one slip was enough. Indra saw his chance, took his vajra and cut the growing embryo into seven pieces. The embryo cried out in pain. Indra feared the noise and struck again, cutting each of the seven pieces into seven. That made forty-nine pieces in all.

The pieces become the Maruts

As Indra went on striking the pieces, each one began to weep. The weeping sounded like the howling of the wind. Indra ordered them to stop: “Mā rodīḥ! Mā rodīḥ!” This means “Do not weep! Do not weep!” The word mā means “do not” and rudaḥ means “weeping”. Together they became the name Marut. All forty-nine pieces became separate beings, each shining with divine energy. They became the Maruts, the storm devas.

Diti had meant them to be Indra’s enemies. But by the very way they were made, the Maruts came under Indra’s power and into his realm. They became his closest companions, the glorious company that goes with him in every act of war and worship. The forty-nine Maruts form seven groups of seven, and each group is linked with a different region of the atmosphere. They are the lords of storm, wind, rain and thunder. Their roar together is the sound of the storm of the sky.

The Madana Dvādaśī vrata

The Matsya Purāṇa places the teaching of the Madana Dvādaśī vrata close to this account. Chapter 7 also records the teaching of this vrata, which is one of the dvādaśī observances kept for Bhagavān Vishṇu.

Sources

• Matsya Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 7