18 – Please Don’t Cry Brother Mine

Hi Friends!

Today let us explore a story of the underdogs, the one’s everyone expects to lose. How would that affect their families? When a son or daughter wins, the happiest is their mother. What happens when the son or daughter loses? How does she cope with it?

Keeping that in mind, let us talk of Diti:

• The mother of the those who keep fighting the gods and sometimes the Gods, and lose at the end… most of the times.
• The daughter of Daksha Prajapati.
• One of the wives of Sage Kashyapa.
• Sister of Aditi, the “god-mother” of Indian mythology.
• Maternal aunt to the Adityas (the sons of Aditi)

Diti, in turn, was the mother of Daityas. Daitya originally meant “the sons of Diti”, but later started meaning “the huge one’s”, based on (most probably) the size of her offspring’s.

The gigantic Daityas, as we were saying, keep fighting for the rule of heavens (“svarga”), against their half-brothers, the Adityas, sons of their maternal aunt Aditi and their father Sage Kashyapa. Mostly they face defeat. Sometimes they achieve momentary success, and get to rule the heavens (“svarga”) for some time. But at the end they meet defeat. Sometimes by the might of the gods, the devas, led by the Adityas, and their king Indra. Sometimes their defeat is harder fought, and one of Gods, mostly Vishnu, takes up a more active role in their defeat.

In these stories we see that the Adityas almost always go for help from, and are preserved by The Preserver, Vishnu, with whom they have a worshipful relationship. In fact in earlier lists (in Vedas and Puranas) he is one of the Adityas.

The Daityas on the other hand, direct their worship towards The Creator, Brahma, from whom they get boons describing exact methods of their deaths. They also have worshipful feelings towards The Destroyer, Shiva, from whom their teacher Shukracharya got the method of reviving them from”death”. The innocent lord (“Bholenath”), Shiva in quite a few cases grants boons to, and supports the Daityas in their fights.

Still in all these fights, at the end the Adityas win and keep their rule of the Overworld (“svarga”), and the Daityas lose and return to the Underworld (“Rasatala” and “Patala”). Barring a few exceptions.

We have already discussed two sons of Diti, who defeated Indra and the Adityas, but were later defeated for Indra, by Vishnu.

• The first, The Golden-Eyed One, Hiranyaksha got the boon from Brahma of being unkillable by a long list of entities and creatures, missing the lowly wild boar by mistake. Using this boon, and his own strength, he defeated the Devas, and even captured BhuDevi, the personification of Earth. Vishnu incarnated as a strong boar, as Varaha Avatar, and killed him using his tusks.
• The second, the Sitter-on-Golden-Cushion, Hiranyakashipu got a better thought out boon from Brahma of being unkillable by any known entity creature, or in his own house or outside, on ground or in the sky, at night or in day, by tools or by weapons. Just like his brother earlier, he defeated the Adityas. He made any worship of the Devas or Vishnu, a punishable offence, but could not stop his own son, Prahlada, of finding the idea of divinity in Vishnu. To save Prahlada, and to help the Devas, Vishnu incarnated as a Lion-Man, Narsimha Avatar. Being neither man nor animal, he took the Daitya king to the threshold of his house (neither inside nor outside), put him on his lap (neither on ground nor in the sky), and in the exact moment of sunset (neither day nor night), he killed him using his teeth and nails (neither tools nor weapons).

After the defeat of her two mighty sons by the hands of Vishnu, exactly fulfilling the boons from Brahma, Diti realised that she needed a stronger son. A son who did not need any boons from Brahma to defeat Indra, and avenge the defeats of his brothers. So she went to her husband, Sage Kashyapa, and asked him to grant such a son to her. Kashyapa tried to convince her to let go of this animosity for the Adityas, and reminded that Indra too was like her son, and if she wished she could live with him in the heavens, getting all the respect due to her as the co-mother of the Devas.

Diti refused and insisted that she wanted a son born of her own womb, someone strong enough to defeat Indra from his birth. Kashyapa relented and granted her the boon she craved, and ordained that the son to be born after 1000 years from her womb would be capable of defeating Indra, on his might alone.

Now Diti thought that Indra could try to harm her, and her unborn child, knowing that once born the child would be capable to defeat him. She asked Kashyapa to ensure that this did not happen. On that Kashyapa said for this purpose the correct behaviour or dharma would be applicable. Being a son of Kashyapa, Indra would actually be duty bound to take care of her, and even his powers as a deva would not allow him to harm the embryo before he was born, on the condition that Diti followed certain expected behaviours for the time the embryo would remain in her womb. These conditions were many. The one’s we need to remember were that she was told not to sleep in an unorthodox place, or with open hair, or unclean limbs.

As the puranic stories were also a way to disseminate good practices to the listeners, this can be construed as an advice for taking care of hygiene by expecting mothers.

The message was: for a healthy child to be born, one who could defeat even the king of gods, the mother-to-be should follow hygiene religiously, as if it was a divine vow.

As predicted by Sage Kashyapa, Indra came over and started taking care of Diti, as a loving son, while she waited for the prophesied child to be born. He was respectful towards her, and ensured her comfort at all times. Seeing this caring side of Indra maybe Diti let go of her immense dislike for him, or may be a hundred years was too long a time. Whatever be the reason, but on the very last day of the 1000 years, Indra found Diti sleeping with her feet dirty, her hair untied, on a cot outside the cottage. This broke all the rules that Sage Kashyapa had set for Diti for the safe birth of the defeater-of-Indra.

The king of the devas was waiting for this exact chance. He reduced himself to a minuscule scale and entered the womb of Diti. Inside he found a divine and bright embryo. The embryo was highly developed as it was almost the end of the gestation period. So he started crying seeing Indra. Indra used his weapon, the vajra, and broke the embryo into seven parts. Each of the seven parts of this super-strong embryo became a full embryo, and all of them started crying. Indra was flustered by this. He repeatedly struck them with the vajra, dividing each of the seven embryos into seven parts.

So now there were 49 (seven times seven) parts, and each inside Diti’s womb became a fully formed almost-child – divine, powerful, and crying loudly. Indra realised that force was not the solution. So he put away his weapons, and lovingly said “ma ruda”, or “don’t cry”. Taking poetic license, he may have said:

Please don’t cry brother mine.
I am one, you are forty-nine.
Let us reverse the animosity between our mothers.
Be my able allies as marut-devas, my loud brothers.

The forty-nine brothers agreed, and the fifty of them (counting Indra as well) emerged from Diti’s womb. Diti was inconsolable with the fact that Indra had succeeded to harm her divine son-to-be, who was now divided into forty-nine entities, each strong but not as strong if they were still one entity. In addition they seemed to be friendly with Indra who stood with them, as all fifty of them paid their respects to her.

Indra said, “Mother, please do not be sad, or angry with me. As you broke your vows, and slept with your hair untied, feet unclean, in an unorthodox place, harm to your child was destined. I am a king, and the right… nay duty of a king is to take necessary steps to ensure that his kingship remains. So taking that opportunity was important for me. I understand that you asked for a son to defeat me, as I refused to share the power and luxury of svarga with your sons. Let me at least grant this wish of yours. These younger brothers of mine shall be granted full rights of devas, and shall share the power and luxury that I have. If I am the lord of thunderstorms, they will be lords of stormy weather, and strong winds. They shall henceforth be called Maruts, based on the first words they heard from me, and shall be my loving brothers and supporter, with same level of divinity as the sons of Aditi, the Adityas.”

Saying this, Indra went away, and the Son of Diti, the would-be (could-be?) Defeater of Indra became the forty-nine Maruts, supporters of Indra, getting their fair share of the heavens and positions as Devas. In some versions of the story, Diti went with them to svarga forgetting the animosity she held in her heart for Aditi, and the Adityas.

But in most versions, this enmity remained. Let us look at one such story next time. Spoiler alert, this time the defeater of Indra is born and is successful in fulfilling his mother’s wishes.