Diti

In Hinduism, Diti (Sanskrit: दिति) is an earth goddess and mother of the Maruts with Rudra. She is also the mother of the Daityas with the sage Kashyapa. She wanted to have a son who would be more powerful than Indra (who had killed her previous children) and so she practiced magic and kept herself pregnant for one year. Indra used a thunderbolt to splinter the fetus into many pieces, the Maruts. She is also Aditi's sister. Diti is the daughter of Daksha-Prajapati one of the grandfather's of creation, a son of Brahma, the god of ritual skill and a king. Her mother was Veerni. She is among one of the sixty daughters of Daksha. She is one of the thirteen wives of Kashyapa, another prajapati and a great sage. She has many demon sons and daughters. Her two most famous sons were the rebirths of Vishnu's gatekeepers Jaya and Vijaya who failed to keep their dharma. They were Hiranyaksha who was slain by Vishnu's varaha avatara and Hiranyakashipu who was slain by Vishnu's man-lion, narasimha avatara. She also had a daughter named Holika who was killed by her own powers. Diti is usually mean and cruel to Kashyapa and Aditi. She is always obsessed with trying to raise the power of demons to its peak. She also hates Aditi's sons who are the gods.