The Devi Bhagavata Purana tells how it began. Mahishasura, an asura born with the body of a buffalo, went to Mount Sumeru and sat in tapas for ten thousand years, keeping his chosen deity in his heart. At last Brahma ji came to him on his swan. ‘Ask for what you want,’ he said, ‘and I will give it.’
‘Make me immortal,’ said Mahisha, ‘so that I need never fear death.’ Brahma ji answered that birth is followed by death and death by birth: whoever is born must die. So Mahisha asked that no god, no asura and no man should be able to kill him. ‘Let my death come from a woman,’ he said. ‘How can a woman kill me? Women are too weak.’ Brahma ji granted it, and went back to his own world.
From here the story is the Devi Mahatmya’s, the part of the Markandeya Purana that every house knows as the Durga Saptashati. For a full hundred years the devas under Indra fought the asuras under Mahisha. The devas were beaten, and Mahisha made himself Indra. He took for himself what belonged to Surya, Agni, Vayu, the Moon, Yama and Varuna, and the devas, driven out of heaven, wandered the earth like mortals.
With Brahma ji at their head, the defeated devas went to where Shiv ji and Vishnu ji were, and told them everything Mahisha had done. ‘We have come to you for refuge,’ they said. ‘Find the way to destroy him.’ Hearing it, Vishnu ji grew angry, and Shiv ji too, and both their faces furrowed with frowns. A great light poured from the faces of Vishnu ji, Brahma ji and Shiv ji and from the bodies of Indra and the other devas, and it all came together as one.
The devas saw it as a burning mountain, its blaze filling the sky on every side. Then that light gathered into one and became a woman. Shiv ji’s light became her face, Yama’s her hair, Vishnu ji’s her arms and Brahma ji’s her feet, and every deva’s light had its place in her. This was the Devi every house calls Durga Maa, and the devas who had suffered under Mahisha were glad.
Each deva gave her what was his. Shiv ji drew a trident out of his own trident and gave it to her, and Vishnu ji a discus out of his own discus. Varuna gave her a conch and a noose, Agni a spear, and Vayu a bow and two quivers full of arrows. Indra gave her a thunderbolt and a bell from his elephant Airavata. Yama gave her a staff, Brahma ji a water pot, and Kala a sword and a spotless shield. Vishwakarma gave her ornaments, an axe, weapons of many shapes and armour no blade could pierce. Kubera gave her a cup full of wine, and Himavan a lion to ride.
Honoured with these gifts, the Devi roared and laughed, again and again. The worlds shook, the seas trembled, the earth quaked and the mountains moved. ‘Be victorious!’ the devas cried to her on her lion. Mahisha, crying ‘What is this?’, rushed with all the asuras towards the roar. He saw her filling the three worlds with her light: the earth bowed under her feet, her crown touched the sky, and her thousand arms reached out on every side.
The Devi Bhagavata Purana adds a word here. Before any blow was struck, Mahisha heard how beautiful she was and sent his minister to bring her to him as his queen, with the wealth of the three worlds. She laughed at the message. ‘Is there any woman in the world so foolish as to choose Mahisha for a husband?’ she said. ‘Tell him to go down to Patala if he wants to live. If he wants to fight, let him come, with all his warriors.’
In the Devi Mahatmya the battle begins at once. Mahisha’s generals came at her one after another — Chikshura, Chamara, Udagra, Mahahanu, Asiloman, Bashkala, Bidala — with chariots, elephants and horses beyond counting. She cut their weapons apart as if in play, and her face showed no strain. Her lion stalked through the asura armies like fire through a forest, and the breaths she drew as she fought became warriors in their hundreds and thousands, who fought beside her. One by one the generals fell: Chamara to her lion, Mahahanu to her trident, Bidala to her sword.
As his army was destroyed, Mahisha came himself in his buffalo shape and terrified her troops. He threw them down with his muzzle and his hooves, lashed them with his tail, gored them with his horns, and rushed at her lion. He pawed the earth until it crumbled, tossed mountains with his horns and lashed the sea with his tail until it overflowed. The Devi flung her noose over him and bound him tight.
Bound, he left the buffalo’s shape and became a lion. As she cut off its head, he became a man with a sword in his hand, and she pierced the man, sword and shield together, with her arrows. Then he became a huge elephant and dragged at her lion with his trunk, roaring, and she cut off the trunk with her sword. Then he took his buffalo shape once more, and the three worlds shook.
Then the Devi, angered, drank again and again from her cup and laughed, her eyes red. Mahisha roared, swollen with his strength, and hurled mountains at her with his horns, and she broke them to pieces with her arrows. ‘Roar, roar for a moment, you fool, while I drink,’ she said. ‘Soon the devas will roar, here, when I have killed you.’ She leapt up and came down upon him, pressed his neck under her foot and struck him with her spear. Held under her foot, he came half out of his own mouth, and she struck off his head with her great sword. The whole asura army perished, crying out.
The devas rejoiced, the gandharvas sang and the apsaras danced. Indra and the devas bowed their heads and sang her praises, the stuti the Saptashati keeps as its fourth chapter, and honoured her with flowers from the garden of Nandana, with perfumes and fragrant pastes, and with heavenly incense. ‘Ask of me whatever you wish,’ she said. They answered: ‘You have done everything; our enemy is dead. But whenever we call you to mind, take away our worst troubles, and let whoever praises you with these words prosper.’ ‘So be it,’ she said, and vanished.
At the very end of the Devi Mahatmya, after her later battles, she makes a promise. Whoever listens with faith to the story of her deeds, Mahisha’s death among them, on the eighth day of the fortnight, on the fourteenth and on the ninth, will meet no wrong and no poverty. At the great puja of the autumn, whoever hears it with faith will be freed from every trouble and blessed with wealth, grain and children, and will fear no enemy, robber, king, weapon, fire or flood. The ninth is one of the days the book itself names for hearing it.
[object Object]
