In Puranic genealogies Diti is presented as a daughter of Prajapati Daksha and a wife of the sage Kaśyapa. The narrative role assigned to her is primarily genealogical: she becomes the mother of the daityas, a lineage that opposes the ādityas (the devas), who are born of her sister Aditi. The Bhagavata Purana recounts an episode in which Diti, jealous of other wives who bore children, presses Kaśyapa to beget a son at the inauspicious hour of dusk while he is absorbed in dhyāna; Kaśyapa urges her to wait, but she insists, and the result is the pregnancy that yields the hostile twin sons Hiraṇyakaśipu and Hiraṇyākṣa, whose rise prompts an incarnation of Viṣṇu to destroy them (Bhagavata Purana as summarized in secondary sources). In a later Puranic episode, after the death of some of her sons in Samudra Manthana contexts, she undertakes tapas and seeks a child powerful enough to slay Indra; in that account Indra shatters the fetus with his vajra and the fragments become the marutas in certain versions. These episodes are the primary origin narratives in the supplied materials and explain Diti's role as an agent whose procreative and ascetic acts bring forth beings that alter the cosmic balance (sources: Bhagavata Purana summary; Wikipedia entry on Diti).
The supplied sources do not provide iconographic or consistent anthropomorphic descriptions of Diti. Puranic and encyclopedic summaries present her in behavioural and genealogical terms rather than as a vividly pictured goddess: she is named and located within family lists (daughter of Daksha, wife of Kaśyapa, sister of Aditi) and is usually portrayed in narratives by her actions and motivations (jealousy, ascetic striving, maternal initiative). Secondary summaries note that Puranic accounts often depict her as hostile toward Aditi and instrumental in producing asura power, but no specific visual attributes, garments, or cult images are described in the provided excerpts (sources: Wikipedia; mythfolklore.net; Bhagavata Purana summaries).
Diti's attributed 'powers' in the supplied texts are chiefly reproductive and ritual/ascetic: through intercourse and tapas she begets extraordinary offspring whose potency can threaten the three worlds. In the Bhagavata Purana summary she forces intercourse at an inauspicious hour and thereby produces twin sons who will persecute the cosmos, necessitating a Viṣṇu incarnation. In another episode, her prolonged tapas and desire for a slayer of Indra lead to a pregnancy whose fetus is broken apart by Indra's vajra; those fragments become the marutas in that account. Thus her narrative efficacy lies in maternal agency, ritually potent pregnancy, and ascetic practice to obtain powerful progeny; direct personal thaumaturgy or martial acts by Diti herself are not recorded in the provided materials (sources: Bhagavata Purana summary; Wikipedia entry).
Adze
A vampiric firefly of the Ewe people of West Africa — a spirit that takes the form of a firefly by night and a malicious possessing being by day, drinking the blood of sleeping children and spreading disease.
Marid
The most powerful class of jinn in Islamic tradition — beings of the sea, associated with the deep ocean, storms, and the granting of wishes at terrible cost. The classic genie of the Arabian Nights.
*Péh₂usōn (reconstructed)
Péh₂usōn is a hypothetical Proto‑Indo‑European pastoral guardian reconstructed by comparative scholars from parallels in Greek and Vedic traditions. Proposed as a Graeco‑Aryan ancestor‑figure, the reconstruction describes a protector of flocks, roads, and travellers rather than an attested historical cultic personality.
Abhimanyu
Abhimanyu is a youthful Kuru/Pandava warrior-hero in the Sanskrit epic Mahābhārata. Son of Arjuna and Subhadra, he is famed for entering the Chakravyuha battle formation on the thirteenth day of the Kurukshetra War and dying at age sixteen; his posthumous son Parikshit continues the Kuru line.
Achyuta
Achyuta (Sanskrit: अच्युत, acyuta) is primarily an epithet/theonym in Vaishnava Hindu tradition applied to Vishnu and Krishna, signifying the divine quality of being 'not fallen' — immutable, infallible, and imperishable. It functions as a devotional name in scripture, liturgy, and Pancharatra lists of divine emanations rather than as an autonomous folkloric spirit.
Acintya
Acintya is an Indonesian Hindu theological-symbolic representation of the ineffable supreme divine principle. In Balinese and Javanese practice it functions as a way to make ultimate reality present in ritual and art—often aniconically as an empty throne (padmasana) or anthropomorphically as a naked, flame-surrounded figure—rather than as a narrative, intervening deity.
Adi (asura)
Adi is attested in modern reference works as the name of an Asura who 'appears in the Matsya Purāṇa.' Beyond this single-line citation in secondary sources, no descriptive material about the figure is provided in the supplied research notes.
Adi Shakti
Adi Shakti (also Adi Parashakti, Mahadevi, Adya Shakti) is the primordial feminine power in Hindu/Shakta theology, regarded as the ultimate reality (Para Brahman) and the source from which all goddesses and gods manifest. She is both an impersonal cosmic principle (Mulaprakriti) and a focus of devotional invocation in temples, mantras, and pilgrimage sites such as Shakti Peethas.
Adi Vinayaka
Adi Vinayaka (Ādi Vināyaka; also called Nara Mukha Vinayaka) is a named iconographic and devotional form of the Hindu god Ganesha portraying the deity with a human head, described in sources as the form before the episode of decapitation by Shiva. It is rarely worshipped and appears in a small number of South Indian shrines and in devotional/musical repertoires.
Aditi
Aditi is a major Vedic goddess in Hindu tradition who personifies the boundless, infinite cosmic principle and functions as the maternal matrix from which many celestial deities (the Ādityas and other groups) are born. In the Vedic hymns she is invoked as a protective liberator who guards petitioners, provides wealth and safety, and frees devotees from hindrances such as sin and sickness.
Agastya
Agastya (also Agathiyar/Agasti) is a revered Vedic and later-period Indian rishi (sage) figure credited in textual traditions as an inspired seer, ascetic, teacher, culture-founder, and attributed author of Vedic, Puranic and Tamil works; in South Indian tradition he is associated with origins of Tamil grammar and Siddha medicine and is identified astronomically with the star Canopus.
Aghasura
Aghasura is an asura from the Vaishnava/Hindu narrative tradition (notably the Srimad‑Bhāgavatam) who, at the command of Kamsa, assumed the form of a vast serpent to ambush Kṛṣṇa and the cowherd boys in Vṛndāvana. The episode demonstrates Kṛṣṇa’s protective, divine power as he enters and destroys the demon from within.
Agiya Baital
The fire-form of the Vetala — a cremation ground spirit of UP and Bihar that manifests as a wandering flame rather than a corpse-inhabitor, leading night travellers off roads and into marshland or flames with a dancing fire that seems always just ahead.
Agneya / Āgneyī
Āgneyī (feminine) or Āgneya (masculine adjective) is a Vedic–Puranic divine figure and ritual principle tied to the fire-god Agni and the southeastern direction. In textual traditions she appears both as a personified daughter/shakti of Agni and as an adjectival/technical term applied to fire-consecrated things (direction, astra, etc.). She also occurs as the name Agneya (or Anala) among items revealed in a Shaiva-Agamic list associated with the Aghora face of Sadashiva.
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- [1]Diti — Wikipedia. Wikipedia contributors, 'Diti,' Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.wiki
- [2]Bhagavata Purana (summarized episodes referenced on Vedabase and Wikipedia). Bhagavata Purana (summary passages as cited in secondary sources; specific episodes summarized in Wikipedia entry on Diti).literary
- [3]Diti (myth entry) — mythfolklore.net. mythfolklore.net, entry 'Diti'.folk