When one reads the hymns to the Maruts in the Rig Veda — and there are many, dozens scattered across all the mandalas, with five consecutive hymns in mandala 5 alone — one cannot help thinking of what we are living through today. Storms that shake mountains. Waters that swirl. Trees that bend in fear. Earth that trembles. Fires followed by floods.
The Maruts describe, with a precision that is vertiginous, the extreme weather events that contemporary climate disruption is multiplying. This is not coincidence — it is the ancient observation of a permanent reality, expressed in the language of Vedic spirituality.
The troop that shakes mountains
In the series of hymns of mandala 5, composed by the rishi Śyāvāśva Ātreya, the Maruts are described in all their atmospheric violence:
5.54.3 — The Maruts, men impetuous as the wind, shook the mountains with what is brilliant by its Light and with the stone arrows. Desiring water, in an instant, they are covered with hail with a roaring, violent and very powerful assault.
5.54.8 — The Maruts have chariots drawn by Horses like men conquering villages. They have hospitable water-skins. They swell the clouds. When the powerful ones shine, they flood the Earth with sweet plants.
5.54.9 — This Earth is a gentle slope for the Maruts. The Sky becomes a gentle slope for the active ones. The paths of the intermediate space are a gentle slope. Gentle is the slope of the mountains that flow abundantly.
What strikes in these verses is the meteorological precision: the hail, the swollen clouds, the floods, the mountains that « flow abundantly » — that is, landslides triggered by torrential rains. The rishi describes phenomena he observed, experienced, feared and invoked.
And in hymn 5.55:
5.55.5 — You lift the rain from the ocean, O Maruts, you make it rain on the inhabited Earth. Your Cows are not exhausted, O You who perform wonderful acts.
5.55.7 — Neither mountains nor rivers hindered you. Where did you place your observation, O Maruts? And you circulate around the Earth.
The Maruts « circulate around the Earth » — a remarkable image for describing the global atmospheric circulation systems that transport moisture from the oceans to the continents, feeding monsoons, cyclones, storms.
Violence in the service of fecundity
What is essential in the Vedic vision of the Maruts is their double nature: violence and fecundity are inseparable. The storm that destroys is also the storm that irrigates.
5.58.7 — Even the Earth extended during their journey. As a husband does for an embryo, they implanted their own forces. Yes, they harnessed the winds like Horses under the yoke, they transformed their sweat into rain, the sons of Rudra.
5.57.4 — The Maruts, impetuous, are like the wind, clothed in rain, all similar in appearance like twins, well-adorned, having tawny Horses and bay Horses, spotless, vigorous, as vast as the Sky in their greatness.
The Maruts « clothed in rain » — the storm and the rain are one entity. The violence of the winds and the fertility of the waters are two faces of the same cosmic force. One cannot have one without the other.
And in hymn 5.59:
5.59.5 — Like reddish Horses, they are together, they expose themselves and are engaged in combat. Like mortals who have prospered, they prosper. With the rains, they alter the eye of the Sun.
« They alter the eye of the Sun » — the storm clouds that obscure the sky in full daylight. The sudden darkness of the storm, which precedes the liberating rain.
What climate disruption does to the Maruts
In the Vedic vision, the Maruts are a balanced force — violent but cyclical, destructive but regenerative. They shake, but they fertilize. They flood, but they nourish. Their violence serves a cycle.
Contemporary climate disruption breaks precisely this cyclical balance. These are no longer Maruts who fertilize the Earth with measure — they are dysregulated Maruts, whose violence is no longer counterbalanced by fecundity. Prolonged droughts followed by torrential rains that carry away already weakened soils. Storms whose intensity exceeds what ecosystems can absorb. Monsoons that arrive too early or too late, too violent or too absent.
In hymn 5.54.12:
5.54.12 — The noble Sky has an untamed splendour, O Maruts, shake the sacred fig tree. They gathered when they stirred violently. Those who are united to Truth let out a howl.
« Those united to Truth let out a howl » — in the context of climate disruption, this is perhaps the most accurate image of what climatologists, ecologists and indigenous peoples have been doing for decades: howling a truth the world refuses to hear.
The inner dimension: the Maruts as psychic forces
True to the Vedic double reading, the Maruts are not only atmospheric phenomena. They are also, in Vedic spirituality, inner forces — what I call in The Civilization of the 7 Rivers the forces of energy, willpower and vital force.
Climate disruption is also an inner disruption. The oversized Ego — individual, collective, civilizational — that consumes without measure, accumulates without limits, exploits without restraint, is the deep cause of atmospheric imbalance. The dysregulated Maruts outside reflect the dysregulated Maruts inside.
In hymn 5.54.15:
5.54.15 — For these riches, I ask you for immediate help by which we will extend the Sky over men. Take pleasure, O Maruts, in this word by whose force we can cross a hundred winters.
« Cross a hundred winters » — to survive the long time, through climatic cycles, through the force of just speech and action aligned with the Truth. This is what the rishis asked of the Maruts. This is what we should ask of ourselves.
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