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Āditya, meaning "of or related to Aditi", refers to the offsprings of Aditi. Adityas are solar class deities.
In later Hinduism, Aditya is used in the singular to mean the sun.
The Adityas being Solar deities have been described in the Rig Veda as bright and pure as streams of water, free from all guile and falsehood, blameless, perfect.
These class of deities have been attributed to as upholding the movables and immovable Dharma. Adityas are beneficent Gods who act as protectors of all beings, who are
provident and guard the world of spirits. In form of Mitra-Varuna, the Adityas are true to the eternal Law and act as the debt exactors.
Vasus are attendant deities of Indra, and later Vishnu. They are eight elemental gods representing aspects of nature, representing cosmic natural phenomenon. The name Vasu means 'Dweller' or 'Dwelling'. They are eight among the Thirty-three gods. There are varying lists of the eight Vasus in different texts, sometimes only because particular deities have varying names. In the Ramayana the Vasus are children of the sage Kashyapa by Aditi and so are full siblings to the Adityas. However the Mahabharata makes them sons of Prajāpati son of Manu son of Brahma by various mothers. The Mahabharata relates how the Vasus, led by "Prithu" (presumably here a male form of Privthvi) were enjoying themselves in the forest, when the wife of Dyaus spotted an excellent cow and persuaded her husband Dyaus to steal it, which he did with the agreement and aid of Pirthu and his other brothers. Unfortunately for the Vasus, the cow was owned by the sage Vasishta who learned through his ascetic powers that the Vasus had stolen it and immediately cursed them to be born on earth as mortals. Vasishta responded to pleading by the Vasus by promising that seven of them would be free of earthly life within a year of being born and that only Dyaus would pay the full penalty. The Vasus then requested the river-goddess Ganga to be their mother. Ganga incarnated and became the wife of King Santanu on condition that he never gainsaid her in any way. As seven children were born, one after the other, Ganga drowned them in her own waters, freeing them from their punishment and the king made no opposition. Only when the eighth was born did the king finally oppose his wife, who therefore left him. So the eighth son, Dyaus incarnated, remained alive, imprisoned in mortal form, and later became known in his mortal incarnation as Bhishma. A later section of the Mahabharata gives an alternate version in which each of the Vasus gives a portion of himself to create a ninth being and so all eight are later drowned leaving only this ninth composite as an incarnation of parts of all the Vasus to live out a very long mortal life as Bhishma. Vasu is also the name of the eighth chakra (group) of Melakarta ragas in Carnatic music. The names of chakras are based on the numbers associated with each name. In this case, there are eight Vasus and hence the eighth chakra is Vasu.
Rudra is associated with wind or storm, and the hunt. The name has been translated as
"The Roarer", or "The Howler". The theonym Shiva originates as an epithet of Rudra, the adjective shiva "kind" being used euphemistically of the god who in the Rigveda
also carries the epithet ghora "terrible". Usage of the epithet came to exceed the original theonym and by the post-Vedic period (in the Sanskrit Epics), the name
Rudra is taken as a synonym for the god Shiva and the two names are used interchangeably.
Ashvins are divine twin horsemen in the Rig
Veda, sons of Saranya (daughter of vishwakarma), a
goddess of the clouds and wife of Surya in his form as Vivasvat. The Ashvins are Vedic gods symbolising the shining of sunrise and sunset, appearing in the
sky before
the dawn in a golden chariot, bringing treasures to men and averting misfortune and sickness.
Maruts also known as the Marutgana and the Rudras, are storm deities and sons of Rudra and Diti and attendants of Indra. The number of Maruts varies from two to sixty (three times sixty in Rig Veda 8.96.8). They are very violent and aggressive, described as armed with golden weapons i.e. lightning and thunderbolts, as having iron teeth and roaring like lions, as residing in the north, as riding in golden chariots drawn by ruddy horses. In the Vedic mythology, the Maruts, a troop of young warriors, are Indra's companions. They are cognate to the Einherjar and the Wild hunt. According to the Ramayana, the Maruts' mother, Diti, either seven or seven times seven in number, hoped to give birth to a son who would be more powerful than Indra. She remained pregnant for one hundred years in hopes of doing so; Indra prevented it by throwing a thunderbolt at her and splintering the fetus into the many less powerful deities.
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