Aditi

In Hindu mythology, one of the wives of
the sage Kashyapa, who also married
9
Aditi
Aditi’s twelve sisters and through them
begat all living creatures. Aditi is first
mentioned in the Rg Veda, where she is
one of the few female figures, although a
minor one. The epic Mahabharata
describes her as giving birth to twelve
divine sons, the Adityas: Dhata,
Aryama, Mitra, Shakra (Indra), Varuna,
Amsha, Bhaga, Vivasvan (Surya),
Pushan, Savitr (Surya), Tvashtr, and
Vishnu. Both Hindu epics, the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, also
describe how Aditi gave birth to the
Vamana avatar, that is, the “divine
descent” of the god Vishnu, in his form
as a dwarf.