The warlike spirit of destruction
I have a ramble about storm gods in store for you, and it starts with the subject of Rudra, the warlike Vedic god of storms now recognized as Shiva. While reading Amir Ahmadi's "The Daēva Cult in the Gāthās", I encountered a description of Rudra in the Svetasvatara Upanishad in which he is basically the indwelling spirit in the hearts of all creatures. To quote the Upanishad:
He who protects and controls the worlds by His own powers, He - Rudra - is indeed one only. There is no one beside Him who can make Him the second. O men, He is presnt inside the hearts of all beings. After projecting and maintaining all the worlds, He finally withdraws them into Himself.
Indeed, Rudra is sometimes referred to in the Rig Veda as the "supreme being" or "sovereign lord" of the universe, and even as the indwelling spirit or "heart" of all of the gods, not to mention the basis of the whole universe somehow. This idea seems to have continued in the post-Rigvedic Hindu faith to some extent, where Rudra is imagined as a name of Shiva or the aggressive/destructive/violent aspect of Shiva. The Ramakrishna Mission, for instance, refers to Rudra as the "Supreme Being" who manifests Himself in numerous forms on behalf of different practitioners. The Shri Rudram, a hymn dedicated to Rudra, is frequently chanted daily in many Hindu temples to Shiva, acknowledges the deity as present in all aspects of life, and although it petitions Rudra/Shiva to manifest his auspicious/benevolent aspect rather than the destructive aspect, the hymn at least implicitly acknowledges the divine as both the garden and graveyard of humanity, as containing the two aspects such that they are inseparable from each other. It has been said that the Vedic Rudra was thought of as not only the creator of vegetation but also its hidden indwelling spirit, a fiery presence that, by being absorbed into the waters and the soil, became the animating presence of plants and other living beings. In this way, in the Indian context, the spirit of destruction is also the central power of life.
Storm gods can play an interesting role in ancient pre-Christian polytheism. On the one hand they are often chiefly seen as cosmicizing agents, beings who defend a given order that has been divinely established by fighting adversaries, often the forces of chaos. Examples of this tendency would include Thor, Perun, Ukko, Zeus, Indra, Enlil, Teshub, and (to a certain extent) Baal Hadad. On the other hand, they can also themselves be "agents of chaos", rebellious entities, or wild gods whose might and power are a constant threat to the cosmic order. Examples this tendency would include Set, Susano-o, or Tezcatlipoca (hurricanes being one of his many domains). Of course, Enlil himself was in some myths a rebel who defied the other gods to pursue his sexual desires, while Zeus, though the main Hellenic god of order or cosmicization, himself assumed rulership of the cosmos in act of insurrection within a cycle of insurrection (overthrowing Kronos, after Kronos overthrew Ouranos).
The Vedic Rudra in his own way was in his own way a dangerous god, while not exactly a reviled enemy of the other gods. He was unpredictable, he could cause frightening natural disasters, his fearful power could cause disease, though he could also heal and bring fertility to the land. For this reason worshippers were keen to receive his favour, and equally keen to avoid his wrath. Wild deities in other traditional contexts have often required a degree of appeasement. In Japan, this is transfigured as ritual pacification as applied to the "araburu-no-kami". Susano-o is in some ways subject to the process, in that while he was the ruler of the netherworld he could still "rebel" in this world. Though Susano-o's transgression in the fields of Takamagahara, which resulted in his exile, also had a vitalising effect, simultaneously destroying and fertilising the fields and even, as a result of scaring Amaterasu into the cave, indirectly leading to that cave being turned into a womb of light.
There's no point to speaking in archetypes, but there's an extent to which a certain kind of storm deity points to the concept of a chaotic force that is at once destructive and linked to the generative power of life; an active violent force that is constantly a threat to the order of things and yet also constantly a source of life for the whole cosmos.
