Vayu

Vayu is the Wind-God, a presence defined by movement and elemental power. The poem shows that power in sharply different forms: he approaches women with a marriage proposal, bends maidens with a blast when angered, and later becomes a grieving father whose wrath stills the breath of the worlds. His most consequential narrative connection is to Hanumán, whom the poem identifies as his son.

Identity and Divine Function

A gloss in the poem identifies Vayu with Mátariśva, giving two names to the same wind deity. Elsewhere, a note places Vayu among the guardians associated with the directions, identifying him with the power that presides over the northwest. These brief identifications situate him in a divine order, but the narrative gives his character definition through action: wind is not merely his domain; it is the means by which his attention, anger, and grief become consequential in the world.

His mobility is made explicit in the episode of the dancing maidens. Vayu is described as able to rove at will and fill all places as he chooses. From that wide-ranging movement, he turns his attention to a particular group of young women, watching them dance and presenting himself as a suitor. The episode makes the contrast between his unbounded reach and the maidens’ mortal lives central to his proposal: he asks them to forsake that lot and become his brides.

Desire and Anger

The encounter with the maidens reveals a forceful, imperious side of Vayu. He addresses all of them as potential brides, then reacts with mighty rage after hearing their answer. The account does not disclose the precise terms of their response in the surviving evidence here, so the scene’s essential turn is the contrast between his declaration of desire and his anger at their reply. His power does not remain a private feeling: he sends a blast against each maiden, bowing and bending their stately forms.

The violence is conveyed through its physical consequence. The women are not merely frightened or persuaded; the wind deforms their upright bodies. The episode therefore makes Vayu’s elemental power an instrument of coercion, while also showing that the poem represents the maidens as a group who answer him rather than silently accepting his proposal. The scene’s emphasis falls on the transition from invitation to rage and on the bodily effect of the blast, not on a reconciliation or an account of what follows.

Punjikasthalá and Hanumán’s Birth

A separate episode connects Vayu with Punjikasthalá, an Apsaras who becomes the wife of a noble Vánara. The account marks a change in her identity: her heavenly title is no longer heard after she becomes a wife in the Vánara world. The poem then places Vayu beside her on a mountain crest. She stands there in tinted garments, and he breathes upon her, fanning her robe aside. The surviving passage presents this as an encounter in the story of Hanumán’s origin, although it does not, in the supplied lines, describe the full circumstances or immediate result of the meeting.

The relationship is made explicit elsewhere: a note identifies Hanumán, Sugríva’s chief general, as the son of the Wind-God. In the narrative itself, Vayu is addressed as Hanumán’s father when the younger figure lies injured. Together, these references establish Vayu not simply as an elemental deity associated with Hanumán, but as his sire. The poem supplies the family connection through both narrative language and explanatory commentary, linking the origin account to the later scene of paternal grief.

Grief, Wrath, and Narrative Significance

The injury to Hanumán brings Vayu’s power into a different emotional register. He sees his son lying with a bleeding cheek and drooping eye; the episode recalls the fearful fall for which Hanumán is named. Vayu’s response is immediate and vast. His anger is associated with the stilled breath of all the worlds, transforming a father’s distress into a crisis of cosmic scale.

The gods respond by praying to Vayu to calm his anger and soothe the sorrow of the father. That appeal makes the relationship between his private loss and the wider world explicit: when the Wind-God withholds or stills breath, the consequences extend beyond his injured son. The scene also contrasts with the earlier encounter with the maidens. In both, emotion becomes physical force, but here the force arises from grief for Hanumán rather than anger at women’s answer to his proposal. Vayu’s appearances thus connect bodily vulnerability with elemental power: a blast can bend a group of maidens, while a father’s wrath can silence the breath on which the worlds depend.