Maruts

About another proof that Rig Vedas had to have been written in India proper, proof discovered through applying animal calendar markers theory to one of the more obscure parts of the Marut's legends.

7th c. Maruts relief, Sambor Prei Kuk, Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia.

In the Vedic mythology, Maruts, are a group of storm/rain deities which always accompany Indra...You can read about them in "THE MARUTS" by Uma Chakravarty...

Indra of course primarily the monsoon rain god, whose main duty is to annually defeat Vritra, the dragon of drought...You can read about this aspect of Indra in "Indra as God of Fertility" by E. Washburn Hopkins

BTW

Indian elephants mate during Indian monsoon season...

Which is why Indra, the thunder and rain god, rides on a white (cloud) elephant...

Articles about elephant calendar marker, India: "Musth", "Samantabhadra", "Modesty", "Ganesha"...

Marut's main duty is to bring rain. 

In RV we can read that:

They are clothed with rain

Rain follows them

They bring water and impel rain

They cover the eye of the sun with rain

They create darkness with the cloud when they shed rain

You can read more about this in "Vedic Mythology" by Macdonell, Arthur Anthony

Their mother is said to be the ocean or the heavenly cow Pṛśni (rain cloud). And their father is said to be Agni (fire) or Vāyu (wind).

A terrestrial river is called, Marudvṛddhā, 'swelled by the Maruts'.

All of this describes the summer wet monsoon

Varāhapurāṇa chapter 82: A "river of the sky" starts at the "ocean of the sky" and, being agitated by the elephant of Indra, falls at the top of mount Meru, where at the bottom it forms four great rivers...I talked about this in my post "Elephants and the river in the sky"...

In other places in Rig Veda, Maruts are said to be the sons of Rudra, and are also often called Rudras. I will talk about Rudra and Rudras soon. This is a very interesting topic which deserves its own post.

On the Sambor Prei Kuk relief, maruts are depicted riding on Makaras. 

Makara is another complex animal calendar marker for monsoon season, which could have only been developed in Indian Subcontinent. I talked about it in my posts "Yakshi" and "Makara"...

And, Makara is already found, with many other, later deified, animal calendar markers, in Indus Valley Civilisation. I talked about this in my post "Proto Durga"...

On the Sambor Prei Kuk relief, the central Marut is depicted riding on an elephant. 

Already explained that elephant is an animal calendar marker for the summer monsoon season, cause elephant mating season peaks in Jul/Aug, peak of summer monsoon season in India...

The elephant rider is flanked by two horse riders. Horse is a universal solar symbol. And horse mating season (Apr/May-Sep/Oct) marks the summer monsoon season in India...You can read more about it in my article about solar horse in India, "Hayagriva"...

Anyway, after this shortish introduction, let me get to the interesting bit 🙂

"Maruts, whose steeds are the spotted deer..." Rig Veda 7.40.3

Rig Veda is full of references to Maruts riding on chariots pulled by spotted deer. And I haven't seen one explanation why would that be the case. 

I have seen attempts to replace spotted deer with spotted horses, probably to make the whole story more Steppe Indo-European. But there is a perfectly good Indian Subcontinent explanation for this "weird" choice of ride for Monsoon Rain Gods...

The chital or cheetal, also known as the spotted deer, is a deer species native to the Indian subcontinent...

Now I explained many times before, animal calendar markers mark significant events from the annual reproduction cycle of the depicted animal: mating, birthing...

Events well known to the local population. So for the spotted deer, people in India would say: "when spotted deer start mating, that would mean that monsoon rain is soon to arrive to"...Why? Cause of this:

You can read more about cheetal deer here and here...

How would locals have known when spotted deer started to mate? Chital stags bellow loudly during mating season. Not something you can miss...

Chital Stag Bellowing - Unseen and Often Unheard Chital Deer Call

Chital stags fight madly during mating season. Also not something you can miss...

So the locals could indeed say "mating of spotted deer is followed by monsoon rain". Or they could say "spotted deer brings rain"...Or they could say "Maruts arrive on chariots pulled by spotted deer"...More poetic...

And apparently this was incomprehensibly difficult to decode for all the people who looked at Rig Veda before me...Why is that? I mean this is obvious, right? Anyone with some knowledge of Indian climate, flora and fauna could have figured this out, right?

Well, yes, if you knew about the existence of animal calendar markers, then this would be obvious. But it seems that the idea of using animals and plants as calendar markers never occurred to anyone...Before me...

And honestly, I am not bragging. I just can't believe I am...

1981, Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia...Šarlo Akrobata - O, o, o, o, o...

Prvi i Jedini 🙂 The First and The Only one

Finally, the fact that the spotted deer is an animal calendar marker for the beginning of summer monsoon in India, means that the hymns about Maruts and their spotted deer steeds had to have been composed in India proper, where all this spotted deer nonsense actually makes sense.

For those interested, I talked about deer as animal calendar marker in many different posts, like "White stag", "Deer kills snake", "Winter deer", "Lachish animal calendar", "Dancing with deer and birds", "Mythical beast from Xian"... Different deer, different mating season, different climate, different animal calendar marker, for different time of the year with different meaning.

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Surya's wives

This very happy looking dude (no wonder he is happy, he has two gorgeous babes sitting on his laps) is no other than the Vedic Sun God Surya. You could say he is positively "beaming" with pride and excitement..And I guess pretty glad to have few extra hands...

Ok who are the babes? Well that's complicated (like every threesome is)...Thankfully, we have Rig Veda, the ultimate Indian tabloid of the time to tell us all about it. Here it goes:

It all started when Tvastar, the Holy Artificer, the creator of cosmos, and few other things, threw a Svayamvara party for his daughter Saranyu...

Svayamvara, as the readers of Rig Vedas are well aware, is a special party during which a girl of marrying age is supposed to pick her future husband from the assembled eligible suitors...

Well, as our readers know, Saranyu was a stunner, so pile of good looking, rich and powerful young men attended her Svayamvara, all hoping to get her hand (and elbow, and shoulder and)...

Among the potential husbands was Surya, under the name of Vivasvan. Surya was hot, hot, hot...I mean he was sizzling...Not surprising for a sun god, some readers might say...And of course Saranyu, picked him. So they get married...

So, the newly weds had steamy passionate relationship full of hot sex...Surya was walking around beaming more and more, cause he got picked by such a stunner who is also great in bed...But then one day, after Saranyu gave birth to Ashvin twins, she suddenly decides to leave...

It turns out, Surya got too hot. And he was all: look at me, I'm so hot...blah blah blah...To the point where Saranyu couldn't stand him any more...But in fairness, what did Saranyu expect (I can hear some of our readers say). She married a sun god...Cause he was hot...

Anyway, before she left, Saranyu arranged "services" of a woman called Savarna, to replace her in Surya's bed. [Or maybe gods arranged this, it all happened all of a sudden before our reporters could get to the Surya's mansions]...Savarna was "similar" to Saranyu, but mortal...

Surya of course didn't notice the swap. [All he was interested was my body, Saranyu said later to our reporter. He didn't care about me as a person. So he was easily fulled by a body double]...And so he went on banging his gorgeous "wife". But  Savarna bears him no children...

Saranyu in the meantime goes back to her father, Tvastar, complaining about Surya: He is just unbearable, I can't even look at him any more...Beaming, beaming, beaming...Uhhhh...

But her father basically tells her: 

"What are you complaining about, you wanted a hottest guy you got the hottest guy...Go back to your husband...And as for the beaming, I'll give him a call and tell him to turn it down a notch...Ok? Good girl!"

[Men 😠, Saranyu later remarked]

So what's all this about...I think climate in India...The climate in India is pretty much hot all the time...The sun, Surya, rules the place...Hence the bling, and the babes...

Here is yearly temperature and precipitation for New Delhi...

The [super important] bit that changes twice a year, are the prevailing winds. During the summer, between Apr and Sep they blow from the sea northwards. And during the winter, between Oct and Mar they blow from the mountains southwards...

Summer winds bring rain. They make rivers swell and rush and make land fertile... 

Winter winds bring drought. They make rivers dry out and make land barren...

I talked about these winds in my post "Ganesha"...

What does this have to do with Surya's wives?

Saranyu is the female form of the adjective saraṇyú, meaning "quick, fleet, nimble", used for wind and flowing water in the Rigveda. Saranyu has also been described as "the swift-speeding storm cloud"...

The name of her replacement Savarna, means "same-kind"...She is not the same as Saranyu, but similar to Saranyu...She is a wind, but not the same wind...

One of the main differences in the between the two, at least in Vedas, is that Saranyu is fertile while Savarna is barren... 

Saranyu is the wet summer monsoon which makes the land fertile...

Savarna is the dry winter monsoon which makes the land barren...

I wonder if this is the reason that one of Surya's consorts is depicted with bare breasts (as in breastfeeding mother) and the other one with covered breasts...Don't know, but If I wanted to depict two Indian seasons, that's how I would do it...Sexy...🙂

PS: Tvastar did call Surya. This is the recording of the conversation obtained by one of our reporters: 

"Son, my daughter came to me today, and burst my ear complaining about you...I am hoping you do understand that when my only daughter is unhappy, that makes me unhappy...And when I am unhappy someone usually gets hurt. You do understand that? Good. So I assume she will not come complaining again?" 

Surya knew better than to mess with the godfather of the universe...See how temperatures drop after the end of the rain season...