Diti

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In Hinduism, Diti (Sanskrit: दिति) is an earth goddess and mother of the Maruts with Rudra. She wanted to have a son who would be more powerful than Indra (who had killed her previous children) and so she practiced magic and kept herself pregnant for one hundred years. Indra used a thunderbolt to splinter the fetus into many pieces, the Maruts. She is also Aditi's sister. Diti is the daughter of Daksha-Prajapati one of the grandfather's of creation, a son of Brahma, the god of rituall skill and a king. Her mother was Veerni. She is among one of the sixty daughters of Daksha. She is one of the thirteen wives of Kashyapa, another prajapati and a great sage. She has many demon sons and daughters. Her two most famous sons were the rebirths of Vishnu's gatekeepers Jaya and vijaya who failed to keep their darma. They were Hiryanakha who was slain by Vishnu's varaha avtara and Hiryankashyapa who was slain by Vishnu's man-lion, narsihma avtara. She also had a dughter named holika who was killed by her own powers. Diti is usually mean and cruel to Kashyapa and Aditi. She is always obsessed with trying to raise the power of demons to its peak. She also hates Aditi's sons who are the gods.

[edit] Birth of Diti's children

Seeing Diti's cowives being blessed with children;Diti too was eager to have a son.So,she had asked Kashyapa for company.Though Kashyapa had acceded to her request,He had asked her to wait for an hour as it was then the time when Shiva and his retinue of ghosts and spirits moved about;which was considered inauspicious and unsuited.However;Diti;shaken by the passion of love and lust, couldn't wait and she seized kashyapa by his garments,which was a sign of immodesty.Since Diti's mind was impure;tainted by lust,she would give birth to two unworthy sons who would violate all the ethics(Dharma) and follow the path of Adharma.When Diti felt sorry,Kashyapa consoled her by saying that they would be slained by Lord Vishnu himself and thus be blessed by the Lord's contact in the end.Also;one of her four grandsons'by her first son,would be a great devotee of Vishnu and also the noblest man(He is Prahlada.).In this way,Jaya and Vijaya were born in this earth to Diti as Hiranyakashipu and Hiranyaksha.

[edit] Further reading

• Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions (ISBN 81-208-0379-5) by David Kinsley

[edit] References

• Dictionary of Hindu Lore and Legend (ISBN 0-500-51088-1) by Anna Dhallapiccola
• TTD Publications.Go to this link to buy 'A Synopsis of Srimad Bhagavatam' for further details.

Hinduism | Hindu mythology | Itihasa
Female Deities: Gayatri | Saraswati | Lakshmi | Dakshayani | Parvati | Durga | Shakti | Kali | Sita | Devi | Radha | Mahavidya | more...
Male Deities: Brahma | Vishnu | Shiva | Rama | Krishna | Ganesha | Kartikeya | Hanuman | Lakshmana | Indra | Surya | more...
Texts: Vedas | Upanishads | Puranas | Ramayana | Mahabharata
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