Aditi and Diti were both sisters and daughters of Prajapati Daksha. From Aditi were born the Devas (gods), while Diti gave birth to the Asuras (demons). Twelve Adityas, or solar deities, were born from Aditi, among whom Surya (the Sun) was the most prominent — hence, he is also known as Aditya. From Diti, the race of Asuras emerged, the first among them being the mighty Asura king Hiranyaksha, followed by his brother Hiranyakashipu, and later the lineage continued through Tarakasura. The Puranas contain extensive details about both Aditi and Diti, and their stories are mentioned throughout India’s ancient religious texts, including the Rigveda and all the eighteen Puranas.
In the Rigveda, the divine mother Aditi is praised in the following manner:
Aditi is heaven; Aditi is the atmosphere; Aditi is mother; Aditi is father; Aditi is the son of mother and father. All the gods are Aditi; the five races are Aditi; birth is Aditi, and the place of birth is also Aditi.”
(Rigveda 1.89.10)
According to Pāṇini, Aditi is the indivisible basis — the very substratum — of creation. Elsewhere in the Rigveda (10.64.5), Aditi is described as follows:
When Daksha (meaning the powerful Sun) was born, Aditi engaged the radiant Mitra and Varuna in their respective duties and also employed Aryaman — the god of the day — in various activities through her sevenfold rays.”
As will be explained later, Mitra and Varuna are the morning and evening forms of the Sun, while Aryaman represents the Sun during the daytime. It is through Aditi’s inspiration that they perform their cosmic functions.
The origin of creation is described as the emergence of Sat (Being) from Asat (Non-being). After the directions (Dik) came into existence, the Rigvedic Dakshāyaṇī Sūkta (10.72) narrates the process of creation in this order:
“We shall now declare clearly to the gods... Before the gods, there was Asat (Non-being). Thereafter arose Āśā — the directions or hopes. From Uttānapada (the cosmic stem of creation) emerged the Earth. From the directions came the mid-region (Bhuvarloka). From Aditi was born Daksha, and from Daksha was again born Aditi. From Aditi, daughter of Daksha, arose the immortal and praiseworthy gods.”
Thus, Aditi is not merely the mother of gods but of the entire universe. In Rigveda 7.10.4, Agni is invoked as the fire born of the universal mother Aditi. That Aditi can be both mother and daughter may seem paradoxical, but who can say whether the father of the universe came first or the mother?
In Egypt, the goddess of the sky Nut “created all beings from her own body.” According to Egyptian mythology, the god of air Shu lifted the divine lady Nut upon his feet, and from her were born innumerable stars. Nut was both the mother of gods and the consort of god Geb (Tu).
Similarly, in Chinese mythology, Nu-Chi, the mother of nine gods, was the goddess of the primeval waters Apas — from which the entire cosmos emerged.
Aditi is neither the Earth nor the sky, for she is both; neither is she merely the atmosphere. She is that primordial reality beyond the sky, the atmosphere, the Earth, and the stars — the infinite being.
Among the Aryans, the primal god was Hiranyagarbha or Kaḥ — the Supreme Brahman. Yet the personality of Aditi appears to reflect the chief goddess of matriarchal societies. This concept was perhaps not unique to the ancient Aryans but inherited from older civilizations like Egypt and Babylon, where settled urban life encouraged reverence for women as symbols of peace and fertility.
The Aryans, being pastoral and warlike, placed their welfare under the leadership of male warriors. Hence, in Aryan religion, male gods dominate. In the Rigveda, Aditi is mentioned in only one hymn and a few scattered verses. Other goddesses like Indrāṇī and Varuṇānī exist only in name; Sītā appears as the ploughed Earth; beyond these, there are hardly any goddesses in the Rigveda.
In the Purusha Sūkta and Hiranyagarbha Sūkta, the creation of the universe is attributed solely to masculine energy, not feminine power. Even in the Dakshāyaṇī Sūkta, the elements and directions arise spontaneously, and only later do the gods emerge from Aditi.
Like similar goddesses of ancient civilizations, Aditi is said to have made her own son or father her husband. In the Rigveda, Daksha — Aditi’s son — becomes her consort as well. In the Purāṇas, however, Kashyapa Prajāpati replaces Daksha as her husband to align with evolving social sentiments.
The Aitareya Brāhmaṇa and other texts record that the primordial being Prajāpati, having created a daughter from his own body, later took her as his wife — an allegory of creation where both male and female arise from the same source.
If creation began with a male deity, his female counterpart would naturally be born of him and thus be his daughter; if it began with a female force, her consort would be born from her. Thus, Daksha — son and husband of Aditi — represents the power of creation itself. The Sun, being the most skillful and active agent, was identified by commentators as Daksha.
Similarly, in Egypt, the sky goddess Nut was married to Shu, the god who stands between heaven and earth — just as in India, Indra rules the mid-space. Commentators have identified the Sun with Indra as well, for according to Nirukta, one deity may bear many names according to his diverse attributes.
In two places in the Rigveda, Diti appears alongside Aditi. In Mandala IV, Sukta II, Mantra 11, Agni is addressed:
“May you enrich Diti and protect Aditi.”
Commentator Sāyaṇa interprets Diti here as “generosity” or “a generous being.” Symbolically, Agni increases the divisible riches of the mortal world (Diti) while guarding the indivisible, eternal maternal power (Aditi). This verse hints at the later distinction between perishable (Asuric) and imperishable (Divine) forces.
In Mandala V, Hymn 62, Verse 8, Mitra and Varuna are called both Aditi and Diti. In Rigveda 7.15.12, it is said, “Diti grants desired blessings.”
In the Brāhmaṇas, gods and demons are presented as mutually opposing brothers, born of the same source but divided by rivalry. By the Rāmāyaṇa period, Aditi and Diti had evolved into two distinct cosmic mothers — Aditi as mother of gods (Devas) and Diti as mother of demons (Daityas).
The etymology of Diti is uncertain, but it likely arose as the antonym of Aditi — the “divisible” against the “indivisible.” Though the term Diti doesn’t appear in Iranian religion, the related word Daitya was used to mean an assembly or community of divine beings. In earliest times, Devas, Asuras, and Dānavas were not different; they diverged later when Devas represented order and righteousness while Daityas embodied strength and pride.
In European mythologies, the primordial mother goddess Danu was also the mother of powerful divine beings called Danavs. Her son Dagda (or Crom Cruach) was a fearsome god worshipped out of fear rather than devotion. Even in Bali, the goddess Danu is associated with Ganga, Durga, and Uma, all consorts of Shiva.
Thus, Diti was not only the mother of demons but also of Maruts (storm gods). In the Rigveda, the Maruts are called Sudānavaḥ — “beautiful sons of Danu.” While the word Sudānavaḥ appears for other deities too, it mainly refers to the Maruts, the tempestuous sons of Diti.
Her Daitya sons perished in the cosmic war after the churning of the ocean, but from her later arose the Marut host, a new generation of gods — a theme developed in later texts.
In the Purāṇas, both Aditi and Diti are described as wives of Kashyapa Prajāpati. In the Rāmāyaṇa (which predates the Purāṇas), Kashyapa is called Mārīchi Kashyapa — Mārīchi being another name of the Sun. In the Shatapatha Brāhmaṇa, the Sun is also called Kūrma (“the doer”), which later becomes Kacchapa or Kashyapa. Hence, the Sun — being active — is Daksha himself.
According to the Vishnu Purāṇa, Daksha’s daughters — Aditi, Diti, Danu, Arishta, Surasā, Surani, Vinatā, Tāmra, Krodhavashā, Irā, Kadru, and Muni — were all married to Kashyapa Prajāpati. Diti’s sons were the demons Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha.
In the Rigveda, however, Hiranyaksha is a name for the Sun itself. The term Hiranya (golden) was originally associated both with the radiant celestial deities and their shadowed opposites like Vritra.
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa states that from Danu was born Vaiśvānara — the universal fire or solar energy nourishing the worlds. Vaiśvānara had four daughters: Upadānavī, Hayashirā, Pulomā, and Kālakā. Kashyapa himself, under Brahmā’s command, married two of them — Pulomā and Kālakā.
These many mothers personified the classification of Asuric tendencies — symbolic embodiments of cosmic powers rather than literal beings. They were often portrayed with animal forms: the Chinese Goddess of the Western Sky was tiger-faced; the Egyptian mother goddess Nut was cow-shaped like India’s Surabhi. All these maternal figures represented the universal generative energy — the mother force (Mātṛ-śakti).
The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad describes the origin of these many mothers as follows:
“In the beginning, Prajāpati, the cosmic being, felt no joy alone. He desired another. He divided his own self into two — husband and wife. From their union arose mankind. The woman then thought, ‘Why does he unite with me, his own creation?’ She hid herself. She became a cow; he became a bull — thus cattle were born. Then she became a mare; he became a stallion — thus horses were born...”
During the Siddhānta Jyotiṣa period, Aditi was identified with the ecliptic (the path of the Sun), since it is the base of all planetary motion, the “mother of planets,” and hence the “mother of gods.” Yet Aditi, in truth, transcends even the ecliptic — she is beyond heaven and earth.
According to scholar Max Müller, Aditi represents an inexpressible existence beyond Dyāvā-Pṛithivī (heaven and earth). In contrast, Macdonell considered Aditi to be the imaginary mother of the Ādityas, derived from the root “to bind” or “to absorb moisture,” implying she was first conceived as the receptacle of light and later deified.
Even Max Müller believed that originally, the wife of the Sky-god (Dyauṣ-pitā) was Svarā, the ancient goddess of the sky, who in Europe became Hera, consort of Zeus. In India, however, Aditi took the place of that ancient universal mother — Svarā, and became the eternal, all-encompassing womb of creation.
Credit : Shri Triveni prasad Singh ( Bihar Rashtra Bhasha Patna Parishad & Indian mythology books published from Geeta press
