Devi: Durga, Parvati and Shakti

In Hindu tradition the Goddess is one and many. The word Shakti means power, and devotees understand the Goddess as the energy through which the divine acts. A well-known saying, echoed in the opening verse of the Saundarya Lahari, holds that Shiva without Shakti cannot even stir. She is called Mahadevi, the Great Goddess, and Adi Parashakti, the primordial supreme power.

She is worshipped in gentle and fierce forms. Parvati, daughter of the mountain king Himavan, is the devoted wife of Shiva and the ideal of loving tapas and family life; Uma and Gauri are her names. Durga, 'the one who is hard to approach' and who carries devotees across difficulties (durgati), is the warrior goddess who defeats evil. Kali and Chamunda are her most terrifying forms, who destroy demons that ordinary force cannot touch. Lakshmi and Saraswati are also understood in Shakta tradition as forms of the one Devi.

Britannica describes the Devi Mahatmya, composed around the 5th-6th century CE and preserved as part of the Markandeya Purana, as the text that first brings these goddesses together into one supreme Goddess. Its 700 verses, in thirteen chapters, are also known as the Durga Saptashati or Chandi Path.

Durga is usually shown with eight or ten arms, though early sculptures, such as a relief at Ellora, show four, and some paintings show eighteen. She rides a lion and spears or beheads the buffalo-demon. In the Devi Mahatmya the gods give her their own weapons, so each one in her hands is a reminder that all divine power is hers.

The killing of Mahishasura. The buffalo-demon Mahishasura defeated the gods and took over heaven. In the Devi Mahatmya (chapters 2-4), the anger of Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma and the other gods pours out as light that combines into a single radiant goddess. Each god gives her a weapon and the Himalaya gives her a lion. After a terrible battle she slays Mahishasura as he emerges from the buffalo's body, and the gods sing her praises. This is the image of Mahishasuramardini found in temples and pandals everywhere.

Shumbha and Nishumbha. In the third part of the text (chapters 5-13), the gods again pray to the Goddess with the hymn 'Ya devi sarvabhuteshu', saluting her as the power present in all beings as consciousness, intelligence, sleep, hunger, forgiveness, wealth and mother. She takes the beautiful form of Ambika, and the demon brothers Shumbha and Nishumbha seek to possess her. From her brow springs Kali, who kills the generals Chanda and Munda and so becomes Chamunda. When the demon Raktabija multiplies from every drop of his blood that falls, Kali drinks it before it can touch the ground. Finally the Goddess destroys both brothers and promises to return whenever the world is in danger.

Madhu and Kaitabha. The first episode tells how the Goddess, as Yoganidra (the sleep of Vishnu), withdrew from Vishnu so that he could wake and destroy the two demons born from his ear-wax who threatened Brahma.

Parvati's tapas. In the Shiva Purana and Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava, Parvati wins Shiva by austerity so intense that even the gods are moved. Her earlier birth as Sati, and Sati's sacrifice at Daksha's yajna, are linked by tradition to the Shakti Peethas, the shrines where parts of Sati's body are said to have fallen.

Devi is the consort of Shiva and mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya. In Bengal and eastern India, Durga is welcomed each autumn as a married daughter returning to her parents' home, accompanied by her children: Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartikeya. Her vahana is the lion, and in some forms, such as Sherawali Mata of the North, a tiger. Her nine forms worshipped in Navaratri, the Navadurga, are Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri and Siddhidatri.

Tuesday and Friday are widely kept for the Goddess, and Ashtami, the eighth lunar day, is especially sacred to Durga. The main time of worship is Navaratri, when many devotees fast for nine days, light an akhand jyoti (unbroken lamp), sow barley in a kalash, and read the Durga Saptashati.

Offerings include red flowers, especially hibiscus, a red chunari, sindoor, bangles and other marks of a married woman (solah shringar), coconut, fruit, halwa-puri and chana. On Ashtami or Navami many homes perform kanya puja, honouring young girls as forms of the Goddess. Red and yellow are her colours, and in Navaratri some communities wear a different colour each day. Devotees sing aartis such as 'Jai Ambe Gauri' and recite the Durga Saptashati, the Devi Kavacham and other hymns. The two verses below are among the most loved in the Devi Mahatmya.

Sharad Navaratri, from the first to the ninth day of the bright fortnight of Ashvin (September-October), is the Goddess's greatest festival, followed by Vijayadashami or Dussehra on the tenth day. In Gujarat it is celebrated with garba and dandiya; in the North with fasting, jagrata and Ramlila; in the South with golu displays of dolls and Saraswati puja. Chaitra Navaratri in spring is also widely observed.

In West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Tripura and Bihar, Durga Puja is celebrated from Shashthi to Dashami with grand pandals, dhunuchi dance and sindoor khela, ending with the immersion of the image. Durga Puja in Kolkata was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021. Parvati is honoured in festivals such as Hartalika Teej, Gangaur and Mangala Gauri vrat, which women keep for marital happiness.

The Shakti Peethas are the Goddess's most sacred shrines; traditional counts vary between 51, 52 and 108. Kamakhya in Guwahati, Kalighat in Kolkata, Jwalamukhi in Himachal Pradesh and Ambaji in Gujarat are among the best known. The cave shrine of Vaishno Devi in the Trikuta hills of Jammu draws millions of pilgrims each year. Other great Devi temples include Chamundeshwari in Mysuru, Kanaka Durga in Vijayawada, Tulja Bhavani at Tuljapur, Vindhyavasini near Mirzapur, Naina Devi in Himachal, Dakshineswar Kali in Kolkata and the Meenakshi temple at Madurai, where Parvati is worshipped as Meenakshi with Shiva as Sundareshwar.

Shaktism is the tradition that worships the Goddess as the Supreme Reality. Its key texts include the Devi Mahatmya, the Devi Bhagavata Purana, the Lalita Sahasranama of the Brahmanda Purana and the Saundarya Lahari attributed to Adi Shankaracharya. The Shri Vidya tradition worships the Goddess as Lalita Tripurasundari through the Sri Chakra, and Bengali poet-saints such as Ramprasad Sen sang tender songs to Kali as Mother.

In Shakta thought, the Goddess is both the material world (prakriti) and the consciousness that pervades it; she binds through maya and liberates through knowledge. Shaiva traditions honour her as Shiva's inseparable Shakti, and Vaishnava traditions see Lakshmi as the Lord's own power of grace. Across sampradayas, devotees approach her above all as Mother, the one to whom any child may run.