The nature and extent of genetic diversity were assessed among 23 parents of pigeonpea hybrids employing Mahalanobis D 2 statistics. Based on relative magnitude of D 2 , the genotypes were grouped into five different non-overlapping clusters. Cluster III, having 8 genotypes, emerged with highest number of entries; cluster I, II and V were constituted by four genotypes each while cluster IV, comprising three genotypes, had least number of entries. The highest contribution in manifestation of genetic divergence was exhibited by 100-seed weight followed by pods per plant, days to maturity, harvest index, biological yield per plant, days to 50% flowering and seed yield per plant. The maximum intra-cluster distance was observed for cluster III, followed by cluster IV, cluster I and cluster V. The highest inter-cluster distance was recorded between cluster II and IV followed by cluster I and IV and cluster V and II. The crossing between entries belonging to cluster pairs having large inter-cluster distance and possessing high cluster means for one or other characters to be improved may be recommended for isolating desirable recombinants in the segregating generations in pigeonpea. Considering the mean performance for different characters of genotypes belonging to diverse clusters, the promising genotypes identified were NDA 2, NDA 7-11, IPA 208 and NDA 5 - 14 of cluster I; NDA 3 - 3, NDA 98 - 6, Amar and NDACMS 1 - 3A of cluster II; NDACMS 1 - 4A, NDACMS 1 - 6A and ICP 870 of cluster IV and NDA 96 - 6, ICP 2155, NDA 8 - 6 and NDAGC 1010 of cluster V for exploitation as parents in hybridization programme for development of superior pigeonpea hybrid cultivars.