MANWANTARA (Manu-antara). The life or period of a Manu, 4,320,000 years.

MARICHA A Rakshasa, son of Taraka. According to the Ramayana he interfered with a sacrifice, which was being performed by Viswamitra, but was encountered by Rama, who discharged a weapon at him, which drove him one hundred yojanas out to sea. He was afterwards the minister of Ravana, and accompanied him to the hermitage where Rama and Sita were dwelling. There, to inveigle Rama, he assumed the shape of a golden deer, which Rama pursued and killed. On receiving his death-wound he resumed a Rakshasa form and spake, and Rama discovered whom he had killed. In the meanwhile Ravana had carried off Sita.

MARICHI Chief of the Maruts. Name of one of the Prajapatis. (See Prajapati.) He is sometimes represented as springing direct from Brahma. He was father of Kasyapa, and one of the seven great Rishis. See Rishi.

MARISHA Daughter of the sage Kandu, and wife of the Prachetasas, but from the mode of her birth she is called “the nursling of the trees, and daughter of the wind and the moon.” She was mother of Daksha. Her mother was a celestial nymph named Pramlocha, who beguiled the sage Kandu from his devotions and lived with him for a long time. When the sage awoke from his voluptuous delusion, he drove her from his presence. “She, passing through the air, wiped the perspiration from her with the leaves of the trees,” and “the child she had conceived by the Rishi came forth from the pores of her skin in drops of perspiration. The trees received the living dews, and the winds collected them into one mass. Soma matured this by his rays, and gradually it increased in size till the exhalations that had rested on the tree-tops became the lovely girl named Marisha.” Vishnu Purana. According to the same authority Marisha had been in a former birth the childless widow of a king. Her devotion to Vishnu gained his favour, and he desired her to ask a boon. She bewailed her childless state, and prayed that in succeeding births she might have “honorable husbands and a son equal to a patriarch.” She received the promise that she should have ten husbands of mighty prowess, and a son whose posterity should fill the universe. This legend is no doubt an addition of later date, invented to account for the marvelous origin of Marisha.

MARKANDEYA A sage, the son of Mrikanda, and reputed author of the Markandeya Purana. He was remarkable for his austerities and great age, and is called Dirghayus, ‘the long-lived.’

MARKANDEYA PURANA “That Purana in which, commencing with the story of the birds that were acquainted with right and wrong, everything is narrated fully by Markandeya as it was explained by holy sages in reply to the question of the Muni, is called the Markandeya, containing 9000 verses.” This Purana is narrated in the first place by Markandeya, and in the second by certain fabulous birds profoundly versed in the Vedas, who relate their knowledge in answer to the questions of the sage Jaimini. “It has a character different from all the other Puranas. It has nothing of a sectarial spirit, little of a religious tone; rarely inserting prayers and invocations to any deity, and such as we inserted are brief and moderate. It deals little in precepts, ceremonial or moral. Its leading feature is narrative, and it presents an uninterrupted succession of legends, most of which, when ancient, are embellished with new circumstances, and, when new, partake so far of the spirit of the old, that they are disinterested creations of the imagination, having no particular motive, being designed to recommend no special doctrine or observance. Whether they are derived from any other source, or whether they are original inventions, it is not possible to ascertain. They are most probably, for the great part at least, original; and the whole has been narrated in the compiler’s own manner, a manner superior to that of the Puranas in general, with exception of the Bhagavata.” The popular Durga Mahatmya or Chandipatha is an episode of this Purana. In the absence of any guide to a positive conclusion as to the date, it may conjecturally be placed in the ninth or tenth century. Professor Banerjee places it in the eighth century. This Purana has been published in the Bibliotheca Indica, and translated by the Rev. Professor K. M. Banerjee.

MARTTANDA In the Vedas the sun or sun god.

MARTYA-MUKHA ‘Human-faced.’ Any being in which the figures of a man and animal are combined.

MARUTS The storm gods, who hold a very prominent place in the Vedas, and are represented as friends and allies of Indra. Various origins are assigned to them. They are some of Rudra, sons and brothers of Indra, sons of the ocean, sons of heaven, sons of earth. They are armed with lightnings and thunderbolts, and “ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm.” The number of them is said in one place to be thrice sixty, and is another only twenty-seven. In the Ramayana they are represented to have their origin in an unborn son of Diti, whom Indra dashed into forty-nine pieces with his thunderbolt, and in compassion converted into Maruts. This is also the story told in the Puranas, and they are said to have obtained their name from the words ma rodih, ‘weep not,’ which Indra addressed to them. A scholiast on the Veda says, that after their birth from Diti, as above told, Siva and Parvati beheld them in great affliction, and the latter asked Siva to transform the lumps of flesh into boys; he accordingly made them boys of like form, like age, and similarly accoutered, and gave them to Parvati as her sons, whence they are called the sons of Ruda. Other legends are, that Parvati, hearing the lamentations of Diti, entreated Siva to give forms to the shapeless births, telling them not to weep (ma rodih); and another, that he actually begot them in the form of a bull on Prithvi, the earth, as a cow. (See Diti). All these legends have manifestly been invented to explain those passages of the Vedas, which make the Maruts the sons of Rudra. The world of the Maruts, called Maruta, is the appointed heaven of Vaisyas. 2. The god of the wind, and regent of the north-west quarter.

MARUTTA 1. A descendant of Manu Vaivaswata. He was a Chakravarti, or universal monarch, and performed a celebrated sacrifice. “Never,” says the Vishnu Purana, “was beheld on earth a sacrifice equal to the sacrifice of Marutta. All the implements and utensils wee made of gold. Indra was intoxicated with the libations of soma juice, and the Brahmans were en-raptured with the magnificent donations they received. The winds of heave encompassed the rite as guards, and the assembled gods attended to behold it.” According to the Vayu Purana, Marutta was taken to heaven with his kindred and friends by Samvarta, the officiating priest at this sacrifice. But the Markandeya Purana says he was killed after he had laid down his crown and retired to the woods. 2. A king of the solar race, who was killed by Vapushmat, and fearfully avenged by his son Dama (q.v.).

MATALI Charioteer of Indra.

MATANGA ‘An elephant.’ A man who was brought up as a Brahman but was the son of a Chandala. His story, as told in the Maha-bharata, relates that he was mercilessly goading an ass’s foal, which he was driving. The mother ass, seeing this, tells her foal that she could expect no better, for her driver was no Brahman but a Chandala. Matanga, addressing the ass as “most intelligent,” begged to know how this was, and was informed that his mother when intoxicated had received the embraces of a low-born barber, and that he, the offspring, was a Chandala and no Brahman. In order to obtain elevation to the position of a Brahman, he went through such a course of austerities as alarmed the gods. Indra refused to admit him. He persevered again for a hundred years, but still Indra persistently refused such an impossible request, and advised him to seek some other boon. Nothing daunted, he went on a thousand years longer, with the same result. Though dejected he did not despair, but proceeded to balance himself on his great toe. He continued to do this for a hundred years, when he was reduced to mere skin and bone, and was on the point of falling. Indra went to support him, but inexorably refused his request, and, when further importuned, “gave him the power of moving about like a bird, and changing his shape at will, and of being honoured and renowned.” In the Ramayana, Rama and Sita visited the hermitage of Matanga near Rishya-mukha Mountain.

MATARI-SWAN An aerial being who is represented in the Rig-veda as bringing down or producing Agni (fire) for the Bhrigus. By some supposed to be the wind.

MATHURA An ancient and celebrated city on the right bank of the Yamuna, surviving in the modern Muttra. It was the birthplace of Krishna and one of the seven sacred cities. The Vishnu Purana states that it was originally called Madhu or Madhu-vana, from the demon Madhu, who reigned there, but that when Lavana, his son and successor, was killed by Satru-ghna, the conqueror set up his own rule there and built a city which he called Madhura or Mathura.

MATRIS ‘Mothers’ The divine mothers. These appear to have been originally the female energies of the great gods, as Brahmani or Brahma, Maheswari of Siva, Vaishnavi of Vishnu, Indrani or Aindri of Indra, &c. The number of them was seven or eight or sixteen, but in the later mythology they have increased out of number. They are connected with the Tantra worship, and are represented as worshipping Siva and attending upon his son Kartikeya.

MATSYA ‘A fish.’ 1. The Fish Incarnation. (See Avatara.) 2. Name of a country. Wilson says, “Dinajpoor, Rungpoor, and Cooch Behar;” but there was more than one country of the name, and one would appear to have been situated in Northern India. Manu places Matsya in Brahmarshi. According to the Maha-bharata, King virata’s capital was called Matsya in Brahmarshi. According to the Maha-bharata, King Virata’s capital was called Matsya, his people also were called Matsyas, and he himself was styled Matsya. General Cunningham finds it in the neighbourhood of Jaypur, and says that the town of Virat or Bairat, 105 miles south of Delhi, was its capital.

MATSYA PURANA This Purana is so called from its contents having been narrated to Manu by Vishnu in the form of a fish (Matsya). It consists of between 14,000 and 15,000 stanzas. This work “is a miscellaneous compilation, but includes in the contents the elements of a genuine Purana. At the same time, it is of too mixed a character to be considered as a genuine work of the Pauranik class. Many of its chapters are the same as parts of the Vishnu and Padma Puranas. It has also drawn largely from the Maha-bharata. “Although a Saiva work, it is not exclusively so, and it have no such sectarial absurdities as the Kurma and Linga.”

MAUNEYAS A class of Gandharvas, sons of Kasyapa, who dwelt beneath the earth, and were sixty millions in number. They overpowered the Nagas, and compelled them to flee to Vishnu for assistance, and he sent Purukutsa against them, who destroyed them. 

MAURYA The dynasty founded by Chandra-gupta at Patali-putra (Patna) in Magadha. According to the Vishnu Purana, the Maurya kings were ten in number and reigned 137 years. Their names were (1.) Chandra-gupta, (2.) Bindu-sara, (3.) Asoka-vardhana, (4.) Su-yasas, (5.) Dasa-ratha, (6.) Sangata, (7.) Sali-suka, (8.) Soma-sarman, (9.) Sasa-dharman, (10.) Brihad-ratha. The names vary in other Puranas. See Chandra-gupta. 

MAYA A Daitya who was the architect and artificer of the Asuras, as Viswa-karma was the artificer of the Suras or gods. He was son of Viprachitti and father of Vajra-kama and Mandodari, wife of Ravana. He dwelt in the Deva-giri mountains not very far from Delhi, and his chief works were in the neighbourhood of that city, where he worked for men as well as Daityas. The Maha-bharata speaks of a palace he built for the Pandavas. In the Hari-vansa he appears frequently both as victor and vanquished in contests with the gods.

MAYA ‘Illusion, deception.’ 1. Illusion personified as a female form of celestial origin, created for the purpose of beguiling some individual. Sometimes identified with Durga as the source of spells, or as a personification of the unreality of worldly things. In this character she is called Maya-devi or Maha-maya. 2. A name of Gaya, one of the seven sacred cities. 

MAYA-DEVI, MAYAVATI Wife of the demon Sambara. She brought up Pradyumna, the son of Krishna, and subsequently married him. Pradyumna is represented as being a revived embodiment of Kama, the god of love; and in accordance with this legend Maya-vati is identified with his wife Rati, the Hindu Venus. See Maya.

MAYU ‘Bleater, bellower.’ The Kinnaras are called Mayus.