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
60 (of 112)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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66 67 68 69
She is indivisible, irresistible, truthful, unageing."
70 71
gentle
and wise,
72 222
She has an inviolable head in the form of speech," and on her
73 the gods established speech. She is endowed with sharpness of sight74
.75
and is said to be devoid of deception. She is looked upon as the
unleaking and well-oared ship of the gods
76 In this connection it
should be noted that as Aditi is primarily the mother of the solar
gods -- Adityas, and as the sun is imagined to cross the expanse
of the sky in an invisible boat every day, Aditi is naturally
conceived as the boat in which the sun-gods journey in the sky.
Aditi is sometimes compared to the Great Goddess of other
mythologies, and is also sometimes regarded as one. A few references
may be noted in this connection : -
"The cult of the Great Goddess was common to the Hellenic,
Iranian and Semitic populations, and that this divinity
enjoyed a wide celebrity under the names of Ardri, Anāhitā,
Nanai, Artemis.
In the Vedic Mythology, the gods have a limited power
and they have a limited power and they have ascendancy over
the goddesses. Aditi's sovereignty
Aditi's sovereignty
is unlimited and she is
68 TB I: 2:417, RV VII # 62:4, VIII � 1816,
VIII : 4719, I # 89:10, II : 27.7
V 1 4626, V 1 70136
67 MS IV: 14:9, RV VII : 40145
58 68 RV VIII : 2513, VIII ; 67 $ 10, TS TV : 115,
SB III : 615:10.
69 TS I : 5:11.
70 TË III : 215.
74 PVB I # 5:19,
71 RV VIII | 18:7,VIII : 67:10.
75 RV VIII # 1816,
72 TS III # 2:5, VS IV: 19.
!
73 SB II # 4:514,
76 AV VII: 613
