Tuesday, July 19, 2005

What's in a name??

Finally the deciding day has come: I have been given my dorm name: FIDOE.
Now don’t go wondering/asking me what it means… its CCCF (Wimwi term, meaning: conceptual clarity and contextual familiarity) is top secret!!
What is interesting is that the word FIDO is related to “dogs” because it comes from fidelity which means trust, loyalty, faith.
This made me search on my name, and I came across lots of information which I did not know. Till date I believed that my name, Aditi, doesn’t have any meaning. It’s the name of a rishi’s wife, who was the mother of devtas or gods in heaven.
But boy! Was I wrong!!! Here is what I came to know about moi:

In Hindu mythology, Aditi was the goddess of the boundless sky. Her name means "free from bonds" or "the unfettered" or "Limitless" and the Vedas hint that she was once all-encompassing. She undoubtedly pre-dates them, and was once “the goddess of the past and the future, the seven dimensions of the cosmos, the celestial light which permeates all things, and the consciousness of all living things.”Aditi, is called the free one, because in Sanskrit her name means "boundless," and is considered an archaic mother goddess, depicted in Hindu, Vedic literature. She represents unlimited space and consciousness, hence infinity or eternity. According to the Rig Veda Aditi is said to be the wife of Kashyapa or of Brahma and the mother of the Aditya, under whose constraint the universe is made possible; and she also personifies death because she consumes everything. She is also considered to be the mother of Hari and other legends have her as the mother of Indra. No human physical features of her are drawn, though she is sometimes identified in the guise of a cow (don’t quite like this bit). Aditi was believed to be a guardian goddess of prosperity and could free her devotees of problems and clear away obstacles.

Wow!! Now I am able to appreciate my name even more! Though its popularity gets on my nerves:
In school it was ok, I was mainly the only Aditi, 1-2 juniors may have shared my name...
But in college, my senior, batch mate, junior: I had 3 Aditis around me!!
And even in IIMA, there are 3 Aditis, one in each dorm!!
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the other Aditis… just that I miss the uniqueness of the name. But I do think it’s a pretty name, whatsay??

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey aditi...
thnx for tellin me so much abt my name... wht i knew was nothin in front of the info given by u..
n yes like u even i miss the uniqueness of my name...

Sugar & Spice said...

:)