Diti
deity figure · 3 works · 6 mentions · 10 anchored passages
goddess Diti
in the texts
Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa
Wife of the sage Kāśyapa and mother of the Daityas; after her sons are slain by Indra she seeks a son to destroy him, but Indra splits her embryo into seven, who become the Maruts.
This is the very region, O descendant of Kākutstha, once inhabited by Mahendra, where he thus attended upon Diti who had achieved the fruit of her austerity.
When her womb had been split into seven parts, Diti, deeply grieved, spoke words of supplication to the thousand-eyed Indra, that invincible one.
When those sons had been slain, Diti, overcome with the deepest grief, spoke these words to her husband, Mārīca Kāśyapa, O Rāma.
Atharvaveda (Paippalāda)
Goddess Diti, named as the winnowing-fan in the riddle-hymn equating parts of the sacrificial preparation with cosmic and divine agents.
The eye is the pestle, Desire the mortar, Diti the winnowing-fan, Aditi the one who grasps the winnowing-fan, the Wind has winnowed it clean;
Diti and Aditi are its two horns;