Sanskrit

Adjective

रुद्र • ‎(rudra)

1. crying, howling, roaring, dreadful, terrific, terrible, horrible. (accord. to others ‘red, shining, glittering’, fr. a √ रुद् or रुध् connected with रुधिर ; others ‘strong, having or bestowing strength or power’, fr. a √ रुद् = वृद्, वृध् ; native authorities give also the following meanings, ‘driving away evil’ ; ‘running about and roaring’, fr. रु + द्र = द्रु2 ; ‘praiseworthy, to be praised’ ; ‘a praiser, worshipper’ = स्तोतृ Naigh. iii, 16)

Noun

रुद्र • ‎(rudra) ?

1. ‘Roarer or Howler’.
2. Name of the god of tempests and father and ruler of the रुद्रs and मरुत्s (in the वेद he is closely connected with इन्द्र and still more with अग्नि, the god of fire, which, as a destroying agent, rages and crackles like the roaring storm, and also with काल or Time the all-consumer, with whom he is afterwards identified ; though generally represented as a destroying deity, whose terrible shafts bring death or disease on men and cattle, he has also the epithet शिव, ‘benevolent’ or ‘auspicious’, and is even supposed to possess healing powers from his chasing away vapours and purifying the atmosphere ; in the later mythology the word शिव, which does not occur as a name in the वेद, was employed, first as an euphemistic epithet and then as a real name for रुद्र, who lost his special connection with storms and developed into a form of the disintegrating and reintegrating principle ; while a new class of beings, described as eleven [or thirty-three] in number, though still called रुद्रs, took the place of the original रुद्रs or मरुत्s: in VP. i, 7, रुद्र is said to have sprung from ब्रह्मा's forehead, and to have afterwards separated himself into a figure half male and half female, the former portion separating again into the 11 रुद्रs, hence these later रुद्रs are sometimes regarded as inferior manifestations of शिव, and most of their names, which are variously given in the different पुराणs, are also names of शिव ; those of the VāyuP. are अजैकपाद्, अहिर्-बुध्न्य, हर, निरृत, ईश्वर, भुवन, अङ्गारक, अर्ध-केतु, मृत्यु, सर्प, कपालिन् ; accord. to others the रुद्रs are represented as children of कश्यप and सुरभि or of ब्रह्मा and सुरभि or of भूत and सु-रूपा ; accord. to VP. i, 8, रुद्र is one of the 8 forms of शिव ; elsewhere he is reckoned among the दिक्-पालs as regent of the north-east quarter).
3. Name of the number ‘eleven’ (from the 11 रुद्रs).
4. the eleventh.
5. (astrology) Name of the first मुहूर्त
6. (music) a kind of stringed instrument (cf. रुद्री and रुद्रवीणा)
7. Name of the letter ए.
8. Name of various men.
9. Name of various teachers and authors.
10. Name of a king.

Derived terms

• रुद्रप्रयाग ‎(rudraprayāga)
• रुद्राक्ष ‎(rudrākṣa)

References

• Monier William's Sanskrit-English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1899