Bṛhatī (बृहती, IAST: Bṛhatī) is a Sanskrit-origin Hindu girl-name meaning “She who is vast, great, and all-pervading”. From the root bṛh (to be great, to grow vast), bṛhatī is the feminine form of bṛhat, 'the vast one,' a term of great Vedic prestige that appears in Ṛgvedic hymns to denote the all-encompassing greatness of the Divine.

Meaning, etymology & significance

Bṛhatī is one of the ancient Vedic metres — a chandas of thirty-six syllables — making this name carry both cosmological and literary-sacred associations; Lalitā as Bṛhatī is the Divine whose expression encompasses even the very rhythms of sacred speech. The same root underlies Bṛhaspati (lord of vastness) and Brahman itself, weaving this name into the deepest Vedic theology. She is vast not in the sense of mere physical size but in the sense of consciousness that can never be measured or bounded.

Bṛhatī is a graceful, classical name occasionally given to girls in learned Hindu families, evoking Vedic grandeur and feminine strength; it is also the name of one of the seven divine metres invoked in Vedic ritual. Pronunciation: bṛ-ha-tī, where the ṛ is the vocalic r sound unique to Sanskrit — Bruh-ha-tee.

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Scriptural source

Bṛhatī appears in the Lalitha Sahasranama, among the sacred names of Lalitha.