Vayu or air is called Rudra as it makes a person weep causing pain as a result of bad deeds.

Depending upon the periodic situation, Rudra can mean the most severe roarerhowler.

Rudra is described as the lord who does total destruction at the time of great dissolution.

The Shri Rudram hymn from the Yajurveda is dedicated to Rudra and is important in the Saivism sect.

Pischel interprets Rudra as the red one, the brilliant one, possibly derived from a lost root rud-, red 15 or ruddy, or alternatively, according to Grassman, shining.

As quoted by R. G.

Bhandarkar, the hymn says Rudra discharges brilliant shafts which run about the heaven and the earth (RV 7.46.3), which may be a reference to lightning.

As from its stem a cucumber, may I be freed from the bonds of death, not reft of immortality.

We salute again and again that Being, Rudra, who alone is the Purusha and the Soul of creatures.

The material universe, the created beings, and whatever there is manifoldly and profusely created, in the past and in the present, in the form of the worldall that is indeed this Rudra.

Do these lines constitute a single verse, or are they separate verses drawn from different places in the text That needs to be made clear.

I propitiate with oblations the ramifications ( vay ) of that divine attainable Viu, the showerer of benefits.

The Avins have come down to our dwelling abounding with (sacrificial) food.

This litany was recited during the Agnicayana ritual (the piling of Agni), and it later became a standard element in Rudra liturgy.

The theonym Shiva originated as an epithet of Rudra and the adjective shiva (kind) is used euphemistically of Rudra, who also carries the epithet Aghora, Abhayankar (extremely calm sic non terrifying).

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

Shri Rudram occurs in the fourth Kanda of the Taittiriya Samhita in the Yajurveda.

It is a preeminent Vedic hymn to Lord Shiva as the God of dissolution and it is chanted daily in Shiva temples throughout India.

The Shri Rudram hymn is unique in that it shows the presence of divinity throughout the entire universe.

We cannot confine the qualities of the divine to those that are favourable to us.

The Lord is both garden and graveyard, the slayer and the most benevolent one.

Shri Rudram describes Rudra the Vedic deity as the personification of terror.

The name Rudra comes from ru, meaning Roar or howl (the words dreaded or fearsome could only be used as adjectives to Rudra and not as Rudra because Rudra is the personification of terror) and dra, which is a superlative meaning the most.

So Rudra, depending on the poetic situation, can mean the most severe roarerhowler or a hurricane or tempest or the most frightening one.

Rudra, the god of the roaring storm, is usually portrayed in accordance with the element he represents as a fierce, destructive deity.

The name Rudra is still used as a name for Shiva.

In RV 2.33, he is described as the Father of the Rudras, a group of storm gods.

On the other hand, post-Vedic texts such as the Mahabharata and the Puranas mention Nandi the bull and the zebu as the vehicles of Rudra and of Shiva, thereby unmistakably linking them as the same.

Sarvadeshik Arya Pratinidhi Sabha.

Rudra Mantra