The principal epithets of Aditi have been mentioned in the passages quoted above, and they throw no further light on the nature of the goddess. She was called devî´, goddess, again and again; another frequent epithet is anarván, uninjured, unscathed. Being invoked to grant light (VII, 82, 10), she is herself called luminous, gyótishmatî, I, 136, 3; and svâ´rvatî, heavenly. Being the goddess of the infinite expanse, she, even with greater right than the dawn, is called úrûkî, VIII, 67, 12; uruvyákas, V, 46, 6; uruvragâ, VIII, 67, 12; and possibly prithvî´ in I, 72, 9. As supporting everything, she is called dhârayátkshiti, supporting the earth, I, 136, 3; and visváganyâ, VII, 10, 4. To her sons she owes the names of râ´gaputrâ, II, 27, 7; suputrâ´, III, 4, 11; and ugráputrâ, VIII, 67, 11: to her wealth that of sudravinas, I, 94, 15, though others refer this epithet to Agni. There remains one name pastyẫ, IV, 55, 3; VIII, 27, 5, meaning housewife, which again indicates her character as mother of the gods.

I have thus given all the evidence that can be collected from the Rig-veda as throwing light on the character of the goddess Aditi, and I have carefully excluded everything that rests only on the authority of the Yagur- or Atharva-vedas, or of the Brâhmanas and Âranyakas, because in all they give beyond the repetitions from the Rig-veda, they seem to me to represent a later phase of thought that ought not to be mixed up with the more primitive conceptions of the Rig-veda. Not that the Rig-veda is free from what seems decidedly modern, or at all events secondary and late. But it is well to keep the great collections, as such,

separate, whatever our opinions may be as to the age of their component parts.

In the Atharva-veda Aditi appears more unintelligible, more completely mythological, than in the Rig-veda. We read, for instance, Atharva-veda VII, 6, 1:

‘Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the welkin, Aditi is mother, is father, is son; all the gods are Aditi, and the five clans of men; Aditi is what was, Aditi is what will be.

‘We invoke for our protection the great mother of the well-ruling gods, the wife of Rita, the powerful, never-aging, far-spreading, the sheltering, well-guiding Aditi.’

In the Taittirîya-âranyaka and similar works the mythological confusion becomes greater still. Much valuable material for an analytical study of Aditi may be found in B. and R.'s Dictionary, and in several of Dr. Muir's excellent contributions to a knowledge of Vedic theogony and mythology.

Aditi as an Adjective.