The
Vayu-Purana shows that the Maruts, "the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower gods in the Rig Veda -- 'are
born in every manvantara (Round)
seven times seven (or 49); that in each Manvantara,
four times seven (or twenty-eight) they obtain emancipation, but their places are
filled up by persons reborn in that character.' " In the
Ramayana Diti, the lower or manifested aspect of Aditi, "anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kasyapa the Sage, that 'if, with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure, she carries the babe in her womb for a hundred years' she will get such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he
divides the embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion
into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts. These deities are only another
aspect, or a development of the Kumaras [or agnishvattas], who are
Rudras in their patronymic, like many others" (SD 2:613).
to be continue "
Marut3"
