About
Dhrti — Wife of Prahlada, Mother of Virochana
Dhrti · Dhṛti · Prahlada-patni · Virochana-mata · Devi (alternate name)
Dhrti is the wife of Prahlada — the supreme devotee of Vishnu, king of the Asuras — and the mother of Virochana, who in turn became the father of Mahabali. She is thus the grandmother of the great and magnanimous Asura king who was subdued by Vishnu's Vamana avatar, and an ancestor of Banasura. Her name is recorded in the Puranic Encyclopaedia of Vettam Mani — the principal encyclopaedic source for Puranic genealogies — in the statement: three sons Virochana, Kumbha and Nikumbha were born to Prahlada by his wife Dhrti. This is the sole primary canonical statement about her in the surviving textual record. Beyond her identification as Prahlada's wife and the mother of his sons, nothing further is recorded in the Puranas. The HinduPad source — a popular devotional website of uncertain textual authority — gives her name as Devi rather than Dhrti, and adds a daughter named Rachna not found in any primary Puranic text; these details are noted but not given canonical weight. The profile is kept short in accordance with the available evidence.
✦ The Name
The Sanskrit word Dhrti — also rendered Dhṛti — derives from the root dhṛ, meaning to hold, to bear, to sustain. It means steadiness, firmness, resolve, patience, constancy of mind. In the Bhagavad Gita (18.33) Krishna identifies Dhrti — steadfast resolve that controls the mind, breath, and senses through yoga — as one of the qualities of sattvic character. As a name, Dhrti therefore designates a woman of steadiness and inner fortitude — a quality entirely consonant with her position as the wife of the being whose own steadiness under the most extreme persecution became the tradition's supreme example of unshakeable devotion.
✦ Lineage and Family
- Husband: Prahlada — supreme devotee of Vishnu; eldest son of Hiranyakashipu and Kayadhu; one of the twelve Mahajanas; king of the Asuras; one of the few beings in the tradition recorded as having attained Vaikuntha
- Sons: Virochana (eldest), Kumbha, and Nikumbha — per the Puranic Encyclopaedia (Vettam Mani), confirmed across Wisdomlib, Dharmawiki, and the Grokipedia sources drawing from the Vayu Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Narada Purana, and Bhagavata Purana; the Bhagavata Purana in some recensions records only Virochana as the named son
- Grandson: Mahabali (Bali) — son of Virochana; the magnanimous Asura emperor subdued by Vishnu's Vamana avatar; currently residing on Sutala Loka under Vishnu's protection
- Great-grandson: Banasura — the thousand-armed devotee of Shiva; defeated by Krishna in the episode of Aniruddha's captivity
- Father-in-law: Hiranyakashipu — Daitya king, slain by Narasimha
- Mother-in-law: Kayadhu — daughter of the Danava Jambha; the medium through whom Prahlada received Narada's prenatal teachings
✦ Note on the Alternate Name Devi
The HinduPad source gives the name of Prahlada's wife as Devi — a generic Sanskrit title meaning goddess or divine lady — and records that she and Prahlada had a son Virochana and a daughter Rachna, and that she accompanied Prahlada to Patala Loka with Mahabali after the Vamana episode. None of these details — the name Devi, the daughter Rachna, the journey to Patala — are found in the primary Puranic texts as consulted through the Puranic Encyclopaedia, Wisdomlib, Dharmawiki, or the Grokipedia sources drawing from the Vayu Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Narada Purana, and Bhagavata Purana. The canonical name across all primary-text summaries is Dhrti. The Devi identification is preserved here as a regional or popular devotional tradition.
✦ References
- Puranic Encyclopaedia (Vettam Mani, 1975, Page 67) — the sole primary canonical source recording Dhrti by name: three sons Virochana, Kumbha and Nikumbha were born to Prahlada by his wife Dhrti; the most authoritative genealogical record for this identification
- Vayu Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Narada Purana — the underlying primary Puranic sources from which the Puranic Encyclopaedia draws its statement on Prahlada's sons; Dhrti's name as their mother implied through the genealogical record
- Bhagavata Purana (Skandha 9) — records Virochana as the son of Prahlada in the Asura genealogy; Dhrti as mother by implication
- Wisdomlib — Virocana (twenty-four definitions); Dharmawiki — Virochana; Grokipedia — Virochana — all citing the Puranic Encyclopaedia statement on Dhrti as Prahlada's wife and mother of his sons
- HinduPad — Devi, Wife of Prahlad — records the alternate name Devi and additional family details (daughter Rachna, journey to Patala); noted as a popular devotional source of uncertain Puranic textual authority