Rudra - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

RUDRA (probably from the root rud, " to howl," hence "the howler"), in Hindu Vedic mythology, a storm god, and father of the Maruts who are frequently called Rudriyas. He shoots tempests at the earth, but is not essentially a malevolent deity, being invoked as a protector of cattle. In the Atharvaveda he is lord of life and death, and in later Hinduism one of the Hindu trinity, the god Siva.

See A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897); Sir William Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, iv. 299-420.