Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c5.951

c5.951

Diti was one of the wives of Kaśyapa. She had no children while the other wives of Kaśyapa had children. Jealousy and grief rankled in her mind. One day she approached Kaśyapa and pressed him to beget a son for her. It was the time of dusk when Kaśyapa was deeply absorbed in his day's devotional worship. She disturbed his "Dhyāna" (devotional concentration) by her importunity, but he was reluctant to yield to her wishes at such an inauspicious time. It is at dusk that Śiva goes about with his attendant hordes of spirits, wearing the crown of his matted hair covered with the dust carried by the whirlwinds from cremation grounds and keeping his three eyes wide open. Kaśyapa asked Diti to wait for a few minutes, until that terrible time was over, but she did not heed his advice. In the fury of her passion she sprang towards him and stripped him of his clothes and in the end Kaśyapa yielded to her carnal desires. But after the act he in a repentant mood told her that she had defiled her mind by having sexual union in that unholy hour and by doing so had sinned against the gods. As a result, twin sons will be born in her womb. They would persecute and torture the three worlds. Mahāviṣṇu would incarnate to destroy them. But since she also felt a little regret in her act, a grandson of her (Prahlāda) will become a devotee of Viṣṇu.