15 Facts About Rudra

Rudra is a Rigvedic deity associated with Shiva, the wind or storms, Vayu, medicine, and the hunt.

Rudra is called 'the archer' and the arrow is an essential attribute of Rudra.

Rudra is one of the names of Vishnu in Vishnu Sahasranama.

Author D A Desai in his glossary for the Vishnu Sahasranama says, Lord Vishnu in the form of Rudra is the one who does the total destruction at the time of great dissolution.

Chakravarti sums up the perception of Rudra by saying: 'Rudra is thus regarded with a kind of cringing fear, as a deity whose wrath is to be deprecated and whose favor curried'.

Related searches

Rudra was believed to cure diseases, and when people recovered from them or were free of them, that too was attributed to the agency of Rudra.

Rudra is used both as a name of Shiva and collectively as the name for the Maruts.

Rudra is mentioned along with a litany of other deities in RV 7.

Usage of the epithet shiva came to exceed the original theonym by the post-Vedic period, and the name Rudra has been taken as a synonym for the god Shiva to where the two names are used interchangeably.

The name Rudra comes from ru, meaning 'Roar or howl' and dra, which is a superlative meaning 'the most'.

In Tibetan Buddhism, according to the Padma Thang Yig, Rudra is a demon, formerly a human monk of noble origin named Koukuntri and then Tharpa Nakpo, who misunderstands dharma and engages in a life of vice and is condemned to Naraka.

Rudra's birth brings about plague and famine, so he is banished to a charnel ground, but he survives by devouring his mother's corpse and returns in order to conquer the world.

Buddha Vajrasattva, who in a previous life was Tharpa Nakpo's master Thupka Zhonu, receives the mission to destroy Rudra, for which he is accompanied by Vajrapani, himself a reborn Pramadeva or Denphak, Nakpo's servant and fellow disciple.

Rudra takes over Rudra's realm and defeats him by plunging a three-pointed khatvanga into his chest.

Rudra then devours Rudra, purifies him in his stomach and excretes him as a protector of dharma, who hands over his army of demons to him as attendants.