Essay name: Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras
Author:
Rajeshri Goswami
Affiliation: Jadavpur University / Department of Sanskrit
This essay studies the Goddesses from the Samhitas to the Sutras. In short, this thesis examines Vedic goddesses by analyzing their images, functions, and social positions. It further details how natural and abstract elements were personified as goddesses, whose characteristics evolved with societal changes.
Chapter 2
51 (of 112)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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ADITI 213 Aditi has the honour of being almost the only goddess
mentioned by name in the Roveda, as the mother of any
of the gods, but it is by no means an easy task to
delineate her character, as the most contradictory
statements are made concerning her. She is invoked as
the bestower of blessings on children and cattle, and
she is declared to be the mother of Varuna and other
deities, sometimes 18. sometimes 12 in number, She is
supposed to be the impersonation of infinity, especially
the boundlessness of heaven, in opposition to the
'finiteness of earth'. Another supposition is that
Aditi is the personification of (universal, all-embracing
Nature or Being):
U
Aditi is a highly remarkable goddess in the Rgveda
variously interpreted as 'sinlessness' (Benfey, Orient
and Occident, RV I.133), 'Infinity' (Max Miller, Vedic
Hymns, note on RV I.166.12); 'emancipation' (Bergaigne,
'La Religion Vedique d'apres les hymnes du Rgveda', and
Neisser, Zum Worterbuch des Rgveda,' Leipzig, 1924),
'a fixed point in the Zodiac (V.M. Apte); 'universal
nature' (拇. Muir) and the earth (Saya峁嘺), etc. Aditi
is the mother or consort or daughter or sister of most
2 of the gods of the Vedic pantheon.
1 W.J. Wilkins, op. cit., p. 170.
2 K. Krishnamoorthy, "Female Deities in the Rgveda,
Journal of Dharma, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1980, p. 133.
