The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c8.80

c8.80

Now the Veda conceives of the Ādityas as the descendants of a feminine Aditi who cuts a considerable figure as a very abstract female, suggesting the ideas of "freedom from fetters," "freedom from guilt," "boundlessness," and "universe." She is finally identified in the Hindu mind with "earth." A father who might be responsible for the offspring of this interesting lady is never mentioned. We are struck first of all with the fact that Aditi, the mother, a purely Hindu product, is obviously younger than her own sons, the best of whom are at least as old as the Indo-Iranian period. I have, for my part little doubt but what Aditi is a well-executed abstraction of some kind. In the past I have suggested¹ that the word *āditya* meant originally "of yore," and that this set of antique gods whose most substantial members are prehistoric were thus fitly named "gods of yore" or "gods of old." We may perhaps contrast with this the description of Indra as "later born" (*anujāvara*), in a legend told in Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa (2. 2. 10). From the word *āditya*, conceived as a metronymic, the feminine Aditi might be easily abstracted. If this is well taken we must assume that the Veda had forgotten the meaning of *āditya* in the sense of "of yore." This was necessarily the case before some speculative genius might invent the mother Aditi. Another explanation, that of Professor Macdonell,² has perhaps the advantage of greater simplicity. He starts from the expression *aditeḥ putrāḥ*, which is applied several times to the Ādityas. This, he thinks, may have meant originally "sons of freedom," perhaps better "sons of guiltlessness"; such an expression may have led to the personification of Aditi as a female mother of Ādityas. At all events Aditi may be safely regarded as later drippings from the very sappy myth of Varuna and the Ādityas. The interpretation of Aditi as "boundlessness," or "universe," sits very well upon an assumed mother of these great gods. Aditi is later defined as "earth," a narrowing of her scope, somewhat as we of the modern languages make synonymous the terms "world" and "earth."¹