The Birth of the Wind-Gods

The sages told the Pandavas how the storm-gods, the swift and shining Maruts, came to be - born out of a mother's vengeance that was turned, by a single lapse, into a blessing.

There was Diti, a wife of the great sage Kashyapa, and she was the mother of the asuras, the demons - among them the mighty Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu. Her sister Aditi was the mother of the gods, the devas, chief among them Indra. And so the gods and the demons were cousins, born of two sisters, and forever at war. In that long war, Indra and the gods had slain Diti's demon sons, and Diti was consumed with grief for her children and with a burning desire for revenge. She longed above all for one thing: a son so powerful that he could kill Indra himself and avenge her slain children.