Birth of the Maruts (Vāmana Purāṇa)

Marut Janma, “the birth of the Maruts”

The Birth of the Maruts is the account in the Vāmana Purāṇa of how the Maruts, the devas who move on the path of the wind and go before Indra (Devendra), came to be. Pulastya Maharshi tells it to Nārada Maharshi in two chapters. The first tells how Diti, mother of the daityas, kept a long vrata for a son who would slay Indra; how Indra served her, entered her womb when she lapsed from purity, made a vajra (thunderbolt) from the flesh of the unborn child, and cut him into forty-nine; and how, because he said “mā ruda”, “do not cry”, the forty-nine became the Maruts, and Indra came to be called Gotrabhit, the one who split his own family.

The second chapter answers Nārada’s further question: who were the Maruts of the earlier manvantaras (the ages of the Manus)? In each of six manvantaras seven Maruts were born, each time in a different and wondrous way. In the Svāyambhuva manvantara they were born to the seven wives of the Saptarshis, who drank the seed of King Savana; in the Svārocisha, from a female crocodile, Śaṅkhinī, who had swallowed the seed of Kratudhvaja’s sons; in the Uttama, from the womb of Jyotishmān’s queen as she entered her husband’s pyre; in the Tāmasa, from the fire into which Ṛtudhvaja offered his own body; in the Raivata, from the pyre of the princess Surati; and in the Cākshusha, from the seed of the ṛshi Maṅki in the waters of the Saptasārasvata. Brahmā (Pitāmaha) came to the crying infants again and again, stilled their cries and made them Maruts. The Purāṇa says that hearing this account removes pāpa (sin) and makes dharma grow.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 45–46

How the account came to be told

Pulastya Maharshi had told Nārada how Indra went to the Malaya mountain at the bidding of Bhagavān Śiva, slew the asura Pāka and so became Pākaśāsana, and tore apart Pura, the son of Bāṇāsura, and so became Purandara. Then Nārada asked: “Brahmarshi, remove my doubt. Why did Indra get the name Gotrabhedī?” Pulastya answered: “Nārada, listen carefully to what Indra did after the death of Hiraṇyakaśipu, and how he became Gotrabhedī.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 45

Diti’s vrata

Seeing her sons slain, Diti went to her husband, Kaśyapa Maharshi, and prayed: “Nātha, you are my husband. Grant me a son who can slay Indra.” Kaśyapa said: “Beloved, if you keep yourself pure and keep the rules of conduct and observance for a hundred divine years, a son will be born to you who will be a slayer of enemies and lord of the worlds.” Diti agreed. The brahmarshi placed the child in her womb and went away to Udayagiri, the mountain of the sunrise.

As soon as the muni had gone, Sahasrāksha, the thousand-eyed Indra, came to the āśrama and said to Diti: “Mother, if you agree, I will serve you while you are in this state.” She agreed. With great humility Purandara brought her samidhs (sacred fuel) and leaves, and watched her closely, intent on his purpose, like a great venomous serpent searching for a hole.

Diti stayed firm in her tapas (austerity). But when ten hundred years were about to be complete, the tapasvinī washed her head, let her hair loose, laid her head on her knees, bent so that her hair touched her feet, and fell into a short sleep.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 45

The forty-nine Maruts

Seeing her thus impure, Sahasrāksha at once entered her womb through her nostrils. There he saw a radiant infant, his hands on his waist, looking upward. On the child’s face was a piece of flesh like pure crystal. Śakra seized it with both hands and in anger squeezed it hard. It stretched at the top and the bottom, grew large, and became a vajra with a hundred edges.

With that very vajra Śakra cut the infant in Diti‘s womb into seven pieces. The infant cried out in a shrill voice. “Fool, do not cry with such a harsh sound!” said Indra, and he cut each of the seven pieces into seven again. Hearing the crying, Diti woke, and from her son’s cries she understood what Indra had done.

Because Indra cut them saying “mā ruda, mā ruda”, “do not cry, do not cry”, those forty-nine became the Maruts. Born in this way through their mother’s lapse, they became Indra’s servants and go before him.

Then Indra came out of the womb, vajra in hand, and, fearing a śāpa (curse), stood before Diti with joined hands. “Mother, I am not the cause of your son’s death. This happened because you were impure. Do not be angry with me, Mother.” Diti answered: “There is no fault of yours in this, child. It is the ordinance of daiva. Only, why did I have to become impure at the very end of the vrata?” So she made her peace. Diti comforted the boys and sent them away with Indra.

“Thus in ancient times, Nārada,” said Pulastya, “being afraid, he split with the vajra his own brothers, of his own gotra (family), and so Bhagavān Mahendra is called Gotrabhit.”

Later, when Bali had taken the three worlds and Indra came to Brahmā‘s court, Kaśyapa Maharshi told him that his loss was the fruit of this deed: the pāpa of cutting the unborn child in Diti’s womb.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 45, 50

The Maruts of the earlier manvantaras

Nārada asked again: “Maharshi, you told me that the sons of Diti became the Maruts. But why do they move on the path of the wind? And who were the Maruts in the earlier manvantaras? Tell me.” Pulastya said: “Nārada, listen. I will tell you in detail who were the Maruts in the manvantaras from Svāyambhuva Manu to the Manu of the present time.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Svāyambhuva: Savana and Sudevā

The son of Svāyambhuva Manu was Priyavrata, himself called a Manu, and his son was Savana, honoured in the three worlds. Savana died without a son. His wife Sudevā, the daughter of Sunābha, stricken with grief, would not let his body be burned; she held it in her arms and sat with it. As that wife, wholly devoted to her husband, lamented, “Nātha! Nātha!”, a voice without a body spoke from the sky: “Kalyāṇī, do not weep. If your devotion to your husband is true, enter the fire with him.”

The princess turned towards the voice and said: “I am not weeping for myself. I grieve because my husband has no son.” The voice spoke again: “Viśālākshī, wide-eyed one, do not weep. Climb the pyre at once. You will have seven sons by your husband. This is true. Trust my word and enter the fire.” At once she laid her husband’s sacred body on the pyre, sat on it meditating on him, and was burned.

Within a muhūrta the king rose up with his wife and flew into the sky. As they moved there at will, Sudevā came into her season. By his divine power the king stayed in the sky with her for five days; on the sixth, after her bath, knowing that the season should not go to waste, he united with her. His seed slipped and fell to the earth, and as soon as it had fallen the king and his wife went by divine motion to Brahmaloka.

That seed, fallen from the sky and of the colour of the sky, lay in a lotus. The wives of the Saptarshis (the seven ṛshis), Samānā, Naḷinī, Vapushmatī, Citrā, Viśālā, Haritā and Aḷinī, saw it with longing and took it for amṛta (the nectar of immortality). Wishing to stay young for ever, they resolved to drink it. They told their husbands, and with their leave they bathed as the rule prescribes, honoured their husbands, and all seven drank the seed that lay in the lotus. As soon as they drank it, the wives of the tapasvins lost their brahma-tejas (the radiance of Brahman), and the seven ṛshis left them.

The seven wives of the munis bore seven sons. The infants cried so terribly that the whole world was filled with the sound. Then Brahmā, the grandsire of the worlds, came to them and said: “Mighty ones, do not cry, do not cry. You will move in the sky, by the name of Maruts.” He took them with him and proclaimed them Maruts. “They, Nārada,” said Pulastya, “are the first Maruts, who appeared in the Svāyambhuva manvantara.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Svārocisha: the sons of Kratudhvaja and the crocodile Śaṅkhinī

The son of Svārocisha Manu was the prosperous Kratudhvaja. He had seven sons, equal to fire, and they went to Mahāmeru to perform tapas to Brahmā, seeking the seat of Indra. Knowing this, Sahasrāksha Indra grew afraid. He turned to Pūtanā, the best of the apsarās (celestial dancers), and said: “Beautiful Pūtanā, go at once to Mahāmeru, where the sons of Kratudhvaja perform harsh tapas. By every means you can think of, break their tapas and come back. May you succeed.”

Pūtanā bore his command on her head and went swiftly to the place. Near the princes’ āśrama a river flowed gently. When the seven brothers went to bathe, the apsarā stepped into the water and bathed too. At the sight of her beauty the princes’ minds were stirred and their seed fell into the water. Śaṅkhinī, the wife of a crocodile named Mahāśaṅkha who lived in that river, swallowed it. Fallen from their tapas, the princes went back to their kingdom, and Pūtanā went to Indra, told him all that had happened, and left.

Many days later fishermen caught the female crocodile in their great net. They threw the strange creature on the bank and told the sons of Kratudhvaja. Those mahātmās, who were yogīs, thought on it and let her go into the well in the grounds of their own house. In time Śaṅkhinī gave birth to seven infants in the well and at once gave up her body. As the boys, without father or mother, cried loudly for milk, Pitāmaha came to them: “Sons, do not cry. From now on you will be devas by the name of Maruts, moving on the shoulders of the wind.” He took them with him, set them on the path of the wind, and went to his own loka. Thus the Maruts appeared in the Svārocisha manvantara.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Uttama: Jyotishmān and his queen

When Uttama was Manu, Vapushmān, lord of the land of Nishadha, ruled his kingdom with the radiance of the sun. His son Jyotishmān was virtuous and devoted to dharma. Jyotishmān performed tapas for sons on the bank of the Mandākinī. His wife, the daughter of the Devaguru, a woman of great beauty, served him and lived a life of tapas herself. She gathered fruits, flowers and samidhs and honoured every guest, and the forest life wore her thin to the bone.

Once the Saptarshis saw her wandering in the forest, shining with the tejas (radiance) of tapas, and asked why she performed such hard tapas in that rough forest. She told them that she and her husband were under a vow of tapas for sons. Moved with compassion, they said: “Mother, go home. You will have seven sons. Our grace, joined to your virtues, will fulfil your wish; there is no doubt.” Giving this vara (blessing), they went away.

The rājarshi returned to the city with his wife, and after many days the queen conceived. While she was still with child, the king died. The ministers begged her not to, but that pativratā (faithful wife) would not be turned back: she laid her husband’s body on the pyre and leapt into its fire herself. “Then, Maharshi,” said Pulastya, “a lump of flesh flew from her womb and fell into the water outside. In the coolness of the water it became seven parts, and from it the Maruts of the Uttama manvantara arose.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Tāmasa: Ṛtudhvaja’s yajña

“Listen, Nārada, to the Maruts of the manvantara of Tāmasa, the brother of Uttama.” The son of Tāmasa Manu, Ṛtudhvaja, began a yajña (fire ritual) for sons. Into the fire he offered as homa his own blood, flesh and bones, the hair of his body and of his head, his sinews, his marrow, his liver, and last of all his seed. As the seed was falling into the fire a sound came forth: “Do not, do not offer the seed!” At that moment the king died. Then out of Havyavāhana, the fire, came seven infants, crying, shining with a tejas like the fire’s own. Hearing their cries, Padmabhava, the lotus-born Brahmā, came, stilled their crying and made them Maruts. Thus the hosts of Marut devas appeared in the Tāmasa manvantara.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Raivata: Surati

In the line of Raivata there was a king named Ripujit, terrible to his enemies. He had no son. He worshipped Bhāskara, Bhagavān Sūrya, the treasure of tejas, and received from him a daughter named Surati, and took her home. While the girl was growing up in her father’s house, Ripujit died. Unable to bear the separation, she prepared to give up her body. The Saptarshis, the mind-born sons of Brahmā, held her back, and the other tapasvins too loved her dearly. Yet she could not bear that ocean of grief: she built a pyre and was burned in it. All the ṛshis who loved her cried out: “Alas! What sorrow! What sorrow!” From the fire of her body seven boys arose. As they wept for their lost mother, Brahmā, the Lokapati, stilled their crying and appointed them as the hosts of the Maruts. “They, Nārada, are the Maruts of the Raivata manvantara.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Cākshusha: Maṅki and Vapu

In the Cākshusha manvantara a tapodhana named Maṅki, truthful and pure in his vratas, was performing severe tapas at the Saptasārasvata tīrtha. To obstruct his tapas, the Tushita devas sent a beautiful woman named Vapu. She came to the river bank and stirred his mind, and his seed slipped and fell into the waters of the Saptasārasvata. Then Maṅkaṇaka, blazing with anger, looked at Vapu and roared: “Foolish woman, you will surely reap the fruit of your pāpa. Go! While you stand at the vedi of a yajña assembly, a horse will destroy you.” Pronouncing this śāpa, the ṛshi went to his āśrama. From those Saptasārasvata waters seven Maruts were born.

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

The phalaśruti

Pulastya ended: “Thus, Nārada, I have told you in detail how the Maruts, who pervade the sky, were born in the former manvantaras. Hearing the account of their birth removes pāpa and brings the growth of dharma.”

Source: Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 46

Sources

• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 45–46, 50