In the
Vedas,
Aditi (
Sanskrit: अदिति "limitless") is mother of the gods (
devamata) and all twelve zodiacal spirits from whose cosmic matrix the heavenly bodies were born. As celestial mother of every existing form and being, the synthesis of all things, she is associated with space (
akasa) and with mystic speech (
Vāc). She may be seen as a feminized form of
Brahma and associated with the primal substance (
mulaprakriti) in
Vedanta. She is mentioned nearly 80 times in the
Rigveda: the verse "
Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha" is seen by
Theosophists as a reference to "the eternal cyclic re-birth of the same divine Essence" and divine wisdom. In contrast, the
Puranas, such as the
Shiva Purana and the
Bhagavata Purana, suggest that Aditi is wife of
sage Kashyap and gave birth to the
Adityas such as
Indra,
Surya, and also
Vamana.