Vayu

Vayu (Sanskrit: वायु, romanised: Vāyu, lit. 'Wind/Air'; Sanskrit pronunciation: [ʋaːju]), also known as Vata (Sanskrit: वात, romanised: Vāta, lit. 'Wind/Air') and Pavana (Sanskrit: पवन, romanised: Pávana, lit. 'Purifier'), is the Hindu god of the winds as well as the divine messenger of the gods. In the Vedic scriptures, Vayu is an important deity and is closely associated with Indra, the king of gods. He is mentioned to be born from the breath of Supreme Being Vishvapurusha and also the first one to drink Soma. The Upanishads praise him as Prana or 'life breath of the world'. In the later Hindu scriptures, he is described as a dikpala (one of the guardians of the direction), who looks over the north-west direction. The Hindu epics describe him as the father of the god Hanuman and Bhima. The followers of the 13th-century saint Madhva regard him as an incarnation of Vāyu. This identification is part of Madhva sectarian tradition; however, the textual basis cited for some such claims has been questioned in modern scholarship, especially by Roque Mesquita, who argued that a number of sources attributed to Madhva are of uncertain or problematic status.