Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/147
doubt but what Aditi is a well-executed abstraction of some kind. In the past I have suggested[1] that the word āditya meant originally "of yore," and that this set of antique gods whose most substantial members are prehistoric were thus fitly named "gods of yore" or "gods of old." We may perhaps contrast with this the description of Indra as "later born" (anujāvara), in a legend told in Taittirīya Brāhmana (2. 2. 10). From the word āditya, conceived as a metronymic, the feminine Aditi might be easily abstracted. If this is well taken we must assume that the Veda had forgotten the meaning of āditya in the sense of “of yore." This was necessarily the case before some speculative genius might invent the mother Aditi. Another explanation, that of Professor Macdonell,[2] has perhaps the advantage of greater simplicity. He starts from the expression aditeḥ putrāḥ, which is applied several times to the Ādityas. This, he thinks, may have meant originally "sons of freedom," perhaps better "sons of guiltlessness"; such an expression may have led to the personification of Aditi as a female mother of Ādityas. At all events Aditi may be safely regarded as later drippings from the very sappy