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Durga

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Durga
18th-century painting of Durga slaying the buffalo demon Mahishasura

Goddess Durga , lit. the one who is difficult to approach, or the undefeatable one, or the inaccessible one, is a form of the Hindu goddess Parvati. She is one of the major deities in Hinduism worshipped as the supreme goddess and is known by different names such as Shakti or Adi Parashakti. She is often depicted with ten, eight, four or eighteen arms killing evil demons like Mahishasura granting peace and restore Dharma (righteousness). She is regarded as the eternal power and mother of the whole universe. She has importance in other religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism and in other denominations like Shaivism and Vaishnavism.

Goddess Durga :-

Mother goddess;

Goddess of Power, destruction, strength, protection, war, devotion, Maya, victory, destruction, fertility, harmony and motherhood

Para Brahman, the supreme being in Shaktism.

Member of the Pancha Prakriti and the Panchayatana Puja.

Member of Tridevi (as Parvati).

One of the highest forms of the supreme goddess Mahadevi.

Goddess Durga is one of the most powerful forms of the supreme goddess Mahadevi. She is considered to be the eternal energy (Shakti) of lord Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. She is known by different names such as Kali, Adi Shakti and Chamunda. She is primarily worshipped in West Bengal and Gujarat. She is often identified with Goddesses like Parvati, Kali and other forms of Shakti. She is one of the five equivalent deities in the Panchayatana puja of the Smarta tradition. Durga is a warrior goddess and is often depicted as a goddess with multiple hands fighting and killing demons like Mahishasura and their army of demons. She is generally depicted riding a lion or tiger. In Southern India, She is generally worshipped as Mariamman, the south indian goddess of Weather.

Durga has a significant following all over Nepal, India, Bangladesh and many other countries. She is mostly worshipped after spring and Autumn harvests, especially during the major festivals of Durga Puja, Durga ashtami, Vijayadashami, Deepavali, and Navratri. According to many Hindu traditions, She is one of the five main forms of prakriti (Nature). She is also one of the most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon.

Origins :-

Durga is believed to have originated from the Indian subcontinent as an ancient goddess worshipped by indigenous mountain dwellers before being established in the main hindu pantheon by the 4th century CE .she is associated with strength, wars and battles, motherhood creation, preservation and destruction. In important texts of Shaktism, Devi Mahatmaya and Devi Bhagavata Purana, where Devi (often Durga) is considered to be the primordial creator of the universe, the Bramhan (ultimate reality) and consider her to be the embodiment of prakriti and Maya (Illusion). Mahishasura Mardini (the slayer of Mahishasura) is among her various epithets which she recieved after slaying the bovine demon Mahishasura. In Vaishnavism, she is considered to be the sister of Vishnu and is known as Yogamaya. In Bengali traditions and worship, she is considered to be the mother of the deities Lakshmi, Sarasvati, lord kartikeya and lord Ganesha. She is one of the most important deities in Hinduism. Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi & Kamala are the ten Mahavidyas (great wisdom goddesses) and are considered to be the form of the Goddess Adi Parashakti (Durga). She is a prominent deity in Hinduism.

Legends:-

According to scriptures, Durga got her name after defeating the demon Durgamasura, a demon who took control over the Vedas but was ultimately defeated by the goddess Shakambari (a form of Durga). She is worshipped mainly during Durga Puja and Navratri.

According to scriptures like the Devi Mahatmayam (the glory of the goddess Durga), after a sage named Katyayana performed penance to please the goddess, the goddess Durga (Mahadevi) gave a boon to him that she will be born as his daughter. A bovine buffalo demon named Mahishasura, performed extreme penance to lord Brahma and as a result, lord Brahma gave him a boon that he could only be defeated by a woman. The gods, defeated by him, together formed a mountain from their inner anger (tejas) and helplessness (according to Devi Mahatmayam), the goddess then choose to manifest out of the mountain and transformed from the supreme, nirguna (formless) Brahman (the ultimate reality) into the mother goddess Durga and merged out of the mountain. The gods offered multiple weapons to the goddess like the Trishula, Scimitar and pasha (noose). Later the goddess Mahadevi was born as the sage katyayana's daughter and was named Katyayani. After defeating the bovine demon Mahishasura in her Durga form, she selected the Vindhyas as her earthly abode.The Devi Mahatmayam is one of the most prominent scriptures dedicated to the goddess Durga. The scripture contains the legends of the goddess and contains hymns dedicated to her like the hymn Sarvani Suryo Tanayo. The scripture depicts the story of how she defeated the demon brothers Shumbha and Nishumbha in her Kaushiki form. It also depicts the story of her slaying the demon generals of Shumbha and Nishumbha like Dhumralochana, Raktabija, Chanda and Munda in her various forms like Kali and the story of her defeating the demon Durgamasura in her primary three forms which are Satakshi (the one who has thousands of eyes), Shakambari (the bearer of vegetables) and Durga (the slayer of demons). It is depicted that when Durgamasura stole the Vedas, the balance of the universe was disrupted and the gods were unable to perform rituals like Yajna and the earthly humans faced extreme famine and drought for nearly hundred years. After seeing her earthy devotees facing extreme starvation, thousands of eyes appeared on her whole body and tear drops started falling from all of her eyes. This caused a flood on earth and rivers, oceans and seas were formed. This form of her is known as Satakshi (the thousand eyed one). To feed all the beings, she took the form of Shakambari (the goddess of food and nourishment). And ultimately, she took the form of Durga to defeat the demon Durgamasura and his army of demons. Legends also describe her as the goddess of food and nourishment taking forms like Shakambari and Annapoorna to feed her earthly devotees and gods.

Manifestations:-

Worship:-

Durga is primarily worshipped in West Bengal and Gujarat. She is worshipped during the festivals named Navratri, Durga Puja, and Dusshera. Her name forms are worshipped for nine days during Navratri. Gujaratis perform a dance form called Garba every night during this festival. Goddess Durga is worshipped in Hindu temples including the famous Vindhyachal Temple, Renwal Dham and Maa Vaishno Devi temple. During Durga Puja, She is worshipped by the people of Bengal for five days. Durga Puja is West Bengal's biggest festival. Just like Gujaratipeople, Bengali people perform a dance form called Dhunuchi Nritya during Durga Puja. Goddess Durga is worshipped all over India and has importance in Other religions like Buddhism. She is also worshipped in other countries and Islands like Bali and Nepal. In Nepal, she is worshipped as Taleju Bhavani, a tantric deity and the primary goddess of the Malla Dynasty of Nepal. Durga is worshipped in Hindu Temples across India and Nepal by Shakta hindus. She is also worshipped as Vishnu Durgai (the combined form of lord Vishnu and goddess Durga) and Maheshwari (one of the eight matrikas and a combined form of lord Shiva and goddess Durga or Parvati) to show her unity with the major deities. In these depictions, she is depicted with the iconography of Vishnu or Shiva with two or four arms identical to the deities and holding their weapons like the Trishula and Damaru of lord Shiva and the Sudarshana Chakra and Shankha of lord Vishnu. In South India, she is worshipped as Mariamman or as a Gramadevata (village Deity). In West Bengal, she is one of the most important and most worshipped deities.

History and texts:-

Devi's epithets synonymous with Durga appear in Upanishadic literature. Such as kali in verse 1.2.4 of the Mundaka Upanishad dated to about the 5th century BCE. The single mention describes Kalika as "terrible yet Swift as thought", very red and smoky coloured manifestation of the divine with a fire- like flickering tongue, before the text begins presenting it's thesis that one must seek self- knowledge and the knowledge of the eternal Bramhan. She is described as a goddess who is adorned with a crescent moon on her crown.

Durga, in her various forms, appears as an independent deity in the Epic periods of Ancient India, that is the centuries around the start of the common Era. Both Yudhishthira and Arjuna characters of the Mahabharata invoke hymns to Durga. Various Puranas from the early to late millennium CE dedicate chapters of inconsistent legends associated with Durga. Of these, the Markandeya purana and the Devi Bhagavata Purana are the most significant texts on Durga. The Devi Upanishad and other Shakta Upanishads , mostly dated to have been composed in or after the 9th century, present the philosophical and mystical speculations related to Durga as Devi and other epithets , identifying her to be the same as the Bramhan and Atman (self,soul). The Skanda purana and Shiva Purana and many other Puranas identifies Durga as the warrior form of goddess Parvati. The Mahishasuramardini stotra by Adi Shankara was written in her Praise.[1]in Yajurveda and Atharvaveda she has been invoked as the goddess who grants protection and bliss. In the Puranas, Durga has been described as the Vana Durga, Jaya Durga, Mahishasur - mardini Durga, Vindhyavasini Durga, Maha Durga and Anala Durga. In the ancient Siddheshwari Tantra, the Durga Apad Uddharaka Stotram is a hymn and a significant part of the Tantra which praises her as the supreme refuge and protector and praises her as the fierce goddess Chandika. Her idols, carves on cave walls have been discovered from different regions and countries like China, Gujarat, Afghanistan (Ghazni), Indonesia (Java), India (Vidisha, Gujarat, Mahabalipuram), Karnataka, Bangladesh. In the Yajurveda (specifically in the Krishna Yajurveda tradition), the Durga Suktam has been found which was written in the praise of Goddess Durga.

In other religions :-

In Sikhism:-

Durga is exalted as a creation of the divine in Dasam Granth , a sacred text of Sikhism that is traditionally attributed to Guru Gobind Singh.[2]According to Eleanor Nesbitt , this view has been challenged by the Sikhs who consider Sikhism to be monotheistic, who hold that a feminine form of the supreme and a reverence for the Goddess is unmistakably of Hindu character.

In Buddhism:-

The Tantric Buddhist Vajrayana traditions adopted several Hindu deities into its fold, including Durga. Numerous depictions of Durga slaying the buffalo demon have been found at Buddhist temple sites (c. 8th- 11th century) in Afghanistan, Indonesia, and Northeastern India. Durga Statues have also been found in major Buddhist sites like Nalanda and Vikramashila. In Bengal, late indian Mahayana Buddhists during 17th century worshipped Durga during traditional Yogini Puja celebrations, and some traces of these Mahayana Durga rites survive today, even though the Bengalis who perform them are no longer Buddhist.[3]Images of Buddhist Durga have also been found in Bali (surrounded with images of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas) and date from the 10th and 11th centuries. [4]Durga also appears in the Tantra called Sarva Durgati Parisodhana tantra, though in this text, she appears not in her demon slaying form, but mounted on a Lion. Several aspects of the popular Vajrayana Buddhist goddess Tara are believed to have originated as a form of goddess Durga.

In Jainism:-

The Sacciya mata found in major medieval era Jain temple mirrors Durga, and she has been identified by Jainism scholars to be the same or sharing a more ancient common lineage. In the Ellora Caves, the jain temples feature Durga with her Lion mount. However, she is not shown as killing the buffalo demon in the jain cave, but she is presented as a peaceful deity.

Depiction:-

She is generally depicted with multiple arms which vary in numbers in different cultures and is generally shown fighting and slaying demons like Mahishasura, Dhumralochana, Shumbha and Nishumbha, Durgamasura, Raktabija, Chanda and Munda. She is generally depicted wearing gold, silver or pearl ornaments and is shown adorned with a Crown (Mukuta) and a crescent moon. She is depicted with three eyes in most of the depictions or with thousands of eyes in some depictions, especially in her forms like Shakambari. In her fierce forms like Chamunda, Kali and Chandi, she is depicted wearing a garland of skulls or freshly severed demon heads (Mundamala). She is generally depicted riding a Lion or Tiger. She is also depicted welding weapons like Scimitar, Sword and Trishula. She is either shown as a peaceful deity or a fierce goddess defeating and killing evil demons. Her ancient sculptures found at various sites like Mahabalipuram (Tamil Nadu), Rani ki Vav (Gujarat) depict her as a fierce deity slaying the buffalo demon Mahishasura. She symbolises power, protection and the cosmic energy of the universe. Depictions of her are also found in Jain Caves.

Influence:-

Durga as the mother goddess is the inspiration behind the song Vande Mataram, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, during the the Indian independence movement, later the official national song of India. Durga is present in Indian Nationalism where Bharat mata i.e. Mother India is viewed as a form of Durga. This is completely secular and keeping in line with the ancient ideology of Durga as mother and protector to Indians. She is present in pop culture and blockbuster Bollywood movies like Jai Santoshi maa. The indian army uses Hindustani phrases like "Durga Mata ki jai" and "Kali mata ki jai". Any woman who takes up cause to fight is said to have the spirit of Durga in her.

  1. ↑ "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". www.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  2. ↑ "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". www.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  3. ↑ "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". www.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-11-25.
  4. ↑ "Wiki: Welcome Visitors". www.wiki.org. Archived from the original on 2016-09-24. Retrieved 2025-11-26.
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