Who The Maruts is
The Maruts are the storm gods of the Rigveda. They are never one god. They are a troop, a band of brothers who are always spoken of together, and the hymns give no single Marut a name.
They are young, and they are all the same age. The hymns say that they grew up together and live together. Their father is Rudra, so the poets often call them simply the Rudras. Their mother is Prishni, whom the hymns call a cow. Scholars explain her name as the speckled one and take her to be the storm cloud.
The poets describe them closely. They carry spears on their shoulders. They wear gold on their chests and golden helmets, and their armlets shine like stars in the sky. They ride in golden chariots, and they yoke spotted deer to them. One hymn says they are wrapped in robes of rain.
When they go out, the world knows about it. The mountains roar and the earth shakes. The forests bow down in fear. Then the dark cloud opens and the rain soaks the ground. The same hymns that fear them thank them, because the rain is theirs to give. One hymn remembers that they lifted up a well and poured out its spring for a thirsty sage named Gotama.
They are singers too. The poets hear a song in the storm, and they say the Maruts sing while they work.
About thirty-three hymns are for the Maruts alone, by the count of the scholar A. A. Macdonell, and several more are shared with Indra. Their number is not fixed. One hymn says thrice sixty. Macdonell notes another that says thrice seven.
Their great friend is Indra. They ride with him and sing for him, and one verse says that when the other gods ran from the dragon Vritra, the Maruts stayed. But the friendship has a quarrel in it. In one hymn Indra asks them bitterly where they were when he fought the dragon alone, and the sage Agastya has to make peace between them.
They are generous to the people who call them. The poets ask them for rain, cattle, horses and strong sons.
They gleam with armlets as the sky gleams with stars, and their rain shines like lightning born from the cloud.