INDIAN MYSTERIES
The following statement appears in the review of Pranay Gupte’s “Mother India”: “Gupte should certainly know that ‘Maruti,’ the name of Sanjay’s failed automobile enterprise, was not the monkey-god of the Ramayana.”
The reviewer errs. “Apte’s Practical Sanskrit-English Dictionary” gives “an epithet of Hanuman” as one of the meanings of Maruti , citing the usage in Raghuvamsa 12.60. Hanuman, “the monkey-god,” is the son of Vayu, lord of wind, and Vayu is also called Marut (see Alain Danielou, “Hindu Polytheism,” pp. 90-92, 131)--hence the patronymic Maruti .
NAOMI ASCHNER, LOS ANGELES
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