ORIENTAL SERIES.

204 MARTTANDA MARUTS.
and the whole has "been narrated in the compiler's own manner,
a manner superior to that of the Purawas in general, with ex-
ception of the Bhagavata." The popular Durga Mahatmya or
Chandftpatfha is an episode
of this Purana. In the absence of
any guide to a positive conclusion as to the date, it may con-
jecturally be placed in the ninth or tenth century. Professor
Banerjea places it in the eighth century.
This Pura^a has been
published in the Biblwtheca Indica, and translated by the Eev.
Professor K. M. Banerjea.
MARTTANDA. In the Yedas the sun or sun god.
MAKTYA-MTJKHA. c
Human-faced.' Any being in which
the figures
of a man and animal are combined.
MAEUTS. The storm gods, who hold a very prominent
place in the Yedas, and are represented as friends and allies
of Indra. Various origins are assigned to them. They are sons
of Eudra, sons and brothers of Indra, sons of the ocean, sons of
heaven, sons of earth. They are armed with lightnings and
thunderbolts, and "ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm."
The number of them is said in one place to be thrice sixty, and
in another only twenty-seven. In the Bamayawa they are represented
to have their origin in an unborn son of Diti, whom
Indra dashed into forty-nine pieces with his thunderbolt, and in
compassion converted into Maruts. This is also the story
told in the Puranas, and they are said to have obtained their
name from the words m& rod$h, 'weep not,' which Indra ad-
dressed to them. A scholiast on the Veda says, that after their
birth from Diti, as above told, /Siva and Parvati beheld them in
great affliction, and the latter asked Siva to transform the lumps
of flesh into boys ; he accordingly made them boys of like form,
like age, and similarly accoutred, and gave them to ParvatI aB
her sons, whence they are called the sons of Eudra. Other
legends are, that Parvati, hearing the lamentations of Diti,
entreated Siva to give forms to the shapeless births, telling them
not to weep (ma rodlJi] ; and another, that he actually begot
them in the form of a bull on Prithivi, the earth, as a cow.
(See Diti.)
All these legends have manifestly been invented to
explain those passages of the Vedas which make the Maruts
the sons of Eudra. The world of the Maruts, called Maruta, is
the appointed hea,ven of Vaisyas. 2. The god of the wind, and
regent of the north-west quarter.