NabaDurga and Her eight Divine powers - Based on Hindu Mythology
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The Super Demon – Mahishasur & His Race Terrorised, Tortured, Tormented and
Tyrannised Gods – Gods fled – 3 Super Gods sheltered Them – 3SGs Created A
Super-Killer Woman, The Superpower-- “The Mother Goddess Durga,” Empowered With
The Eight Heavenly Feminine Powers, Kills All the Demons …
Across the clear blue sky drift away and away the fleecy white clouds as if
fleets of sailing ships move towards an unknown destination where happiness is
perpetual; where peace is eternal. Amid these gifts of nature a slight touch of
the nip in the air marks the advent of autumn - the season for Indians’ one of
the most popular, most loving, most caring Festivals - Durga Puja, the worship
of the Mother goddess Durga. Durga Puja is celebrated with great pomp and
ceremony all over West Bengal, India and in many places in five continents.
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Celebration of Durga Puja is not only restricted to
one or two communities but it is among all the proud Indians. Nowadays, it has
become a boundless festival amongst the people of all races, colours and creeds.
The familiar sound of drum (Dhak), a folk dance with burning urn-shaped earthen
pots on the altar of the worshipping Hindu idols (Dhunuchi
dance), and the mild fragrance of Shiuli flowers altogether give rise
a familiar emotional feeling to every Indian heart as well as to those Indians
who live abroad. Frankly speaking, the Durga Puja Festival is in their veins, in
their blood, in their heart and soul. It is the greatest of all great occasions
for all of them whether they live in India or in five continents. Nowadays,
Durga Puja is no longer a puja only or a set of customary rites and rituals
only, but a large or rather the largest Festival in India covering chiefly four
consecutive Puja days packed with great joy, fun and merriment. Though it is a
religious festival basically, it is more of a religious one. Therefore, Durga
Puja, nowadays, has largely turned into a Social Festival of the world.
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Conventionally, the clay made
idols of Durgaand Her children Laxmi, Saraswati, Kartik andGanesh are
worshipped consecutively for four days at every community-run makeshift
temple during the autumn season every year. The same conventional style of
Mother Durga and Her children is also seen worshipped at every domestic
Durga Puja Festival.
But there is an exception to the above convention and that exception is
absolutely unique of its kind, as well one and only on this earth. This
unique kind of Durga Puja Festival is a community Durga Puja Festival, and
it is well organised in this part of the world by Howrah Shibpur Sarbojanin
Durgotsav Committee, Shibpur, Howrah, West Bengal, India. H.S.S.D.C. or
famously known as SSD is a very old name in the historical chapter of West
Bengal, and their Durga Puja Festival is one of the oldest celebrations in
this country with a unique characteristic presentation of various clay-made
idols at their makeshift
temple for age old glorious exhibition and for sincere worship. This unique
characteristic presentation of the goddess Mother Durga and Her other
associated idols, unlike the conventional one, is truly based on the Hindu
mythology. The arrangement of the clay idols over the temporary bamboo made
cascade designed platform inside the makeshift temple is in a circular
fashion -- from top to below and from below to top. However, the complete
panoramically photographic view attached above depicts the true witness of
the Hindu Mythology. The SSD and their celebration of Puja Festival are well
synonymous with the backdrop of rich and orthodox Hindu culture, a symbol of
decades’ long Indian heritage and tradition. Being an age-old community
Durga Puja Festival organised by SSD it creates and serves such a warm and
homely atmosphere in and around the makeshift temple and its locality during
the Puja Festival days that it may, indeed, be comparable with those of
centuries old traditional Domestic Durga Pujas.
Last but not least, SSD has
been celebrating their Durga Puja Festival uninterrupted for last 70 years.
Apart from rite, ritual and religion SSD on one hand organise various
cultural programmes across the Puja days, on the other hand, they also hold
social and community welfare programmes time to time. Often their Puja
inaugural ceremonies are honoured by many different dignitaries of various
quarters of Calcutta. Surprisingly this Puja Festival is exceptionally
devoid of surface brilliance and huge financial expenditure. |
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Now let us look into what is actually, written in
the Hindu Mythology. An evil powered demon named Mahishasur had earned the grant
of a boon from Lord Shiva by way of long devotions to Him (by way of punishing
himself hard). Lord Shiva having been impressed with Mahishasur’s
devotions blessed him that no one but a woman would be able to kill him.
Mahishasur was very pleased with the boon of Lord Shiva as he thought that no
women would ever be able to defeat and kill him as they are by nature physically
weaker than men. Hence he began to imagine himself as an immortal soul like all
the Superiorgods Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswar (Lord Shiva). |
Being
big-headed Mahishasur and his fellow brothers Ausuras created a hellish
terror all over the Universe. They had started torturing and killing the
innocent people on the Earth mercilessly. They also terrorised, tortured,
tormented and tyrannised all the godsin the Heavens, and such danger continued
for a long period of one hundred years. Ultimately, the gods were thrown out of
the Heaven by the demons. The gods finding no alternative fled away in fear and
took shelter inside the
surrounding of Indra’s great Lotus (the King of all the gods and other
subordinate gods). Then keeping Him in the forefront as their protector they all
reached the place where Great Superior gods Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswar were
present. Shedding profuse tears the poor and helpless gods narrated them, at
length, their sorrowful stories ofterrorism, torture, torment and tyranny
ruthlessly at the brutal hands of the demon king Mahishasur and his race. After
hearing their pitiful stories the three Superior gods began to think deep and
try to find out a solution. After much thought Maheswar said that the creation
of a feminine god or goddess would only be the solution to fight, defeat and
finally, kill the demon king Mahishasur and his fellow brothers for ever. The
Trinity became very furious after that; their twisted brows threw out tremendous
fire of anger. Soon a glaring flame of great fire began to emit from within the
mouths and the bodies of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheswar.
Along with
these Superior gods, Indra also took out a very strong and powerful dazzling
flame of fire from within his mouth and body. All the glaring, flaring and
blaring flames of fireballs are put together to take a huge shape of an enormous
eruption. That enormous power of eruption turned into a Herculean strength of
thunderbolt across the Heaven, across the Earth, and across the hell, and from
that Herculean strength of thunderbolt there created a most beautiful,
magnificent Feminine Appearance with ten full-limbed hands. The Creation of
this Feminine Image is no one but our Mother goddess Durga whom we worship
every year around this time with absolute sincerity and solemnity. The Mother
goddess Durga represents a united front of all Divine forces against the
negative forces of evil and wickedness. She stands and acts as a universal
protector of all the evil forces. She also acts as a destroyer of all the
wickedness.
The goddess Mother Durga was then strongly empowered by the Trinity and all
other gods. Her face reflected the light of Lord Shiva; her ten arms were
from Lord Vishnu; her feet were from Lord Brahma; the tresses were formed from
the light of Yuma; the god of death and the two breasts were formed from the
light the Moon god; the waist from the light of Indra; the legs and the thighs
from the light of Varun, the god of oceans; the hips from the light of Earth;
the toes from the light of the Sun god; fingers of the hand from the light of
the Vasus; the children of goddess river Ganges; and nose from the light of
Kuber, the keeper of wealth for all the gods. The teeth were formed from the
light of Projapati, the lord of creatures; the Triad of her eyes was born from
the light the fire of god; the eyebrows from the Sandhyas i.e., sunrise and
sunset; the ear from the light of Vayu, the Wind god. Thus, from the energy of
these gods, as well as from many other gods, was formed the goddess Mother Durga.
After the
completion of the formation of Her different body parts the Superior gods and
the other subordinates further, gifted
the Mother goddess Durga with their Deadly Divine Weapons and other
divine objects to help her in her battle with the demon, Mahishasur. Lord
Shiva gave her a trident (trishul) while Lord Vishnu gave her a disc (shudharshan
chakra). Varun, gave her aconch and lasso, and Agni gave her a spear.
From Vayu, she received arrows. Indra gave her a thunderbolt, and the gift of
his white-skinned elephant Airavata with a bell. From Yuma, she
received a sword and shield and from Vishwakarma (god of
Architecture), an axe and armour.
The god of mountains, Himavat gifted Her with jewels and his totem lion to ride
on during the war in the battlefield. Durga was also given many other precious
and magical gifts, new clothing, and a garland of immortal lotuses for her head
and breasts.It is further mentioned in the Mythology that how the Eight Heavenly
Powers assisted the Mother Durga in order to kill the demon king Mahishasur and
his millions and millions of demon soldiers. These Eight Heavenly Powers were
transformed into eight different Divine Women. They were Brahmani,
Shivani, Koumari, Vaishnavi, Indrani, Barahi, Narasinghi and chamundi. These
Heavenly and Divine Women Powers were the conglomeration of all the Earthly and
Unearthly Greatest Universal Power.
Devi
Durga having been strengthened with all the Deadly Divine Weapons broke into
roaring laughter again and again. At Her loud roaring laughter the whole
Universe began to rock vehemently. Such rock echoed all the corners of the
Heaven, the Earth and the hell. The Devatas (the gods) joyfully welcomed the
Devi Durga and Her Lion troops. The saints and the hermits from the Earth
respectfully bowed down their heads, greeted and wished Her all success in this
ensuing violent battle with the demon king Mahishasur and his race.
Now the fierce fight broke out between the Devi Durga and the demons (Ausuras).
Various kinds of highly dangerous arms and ammunitions were widely used in
the battlefield and that created terrible hullabaloo in, around and across the
Universe. Mahiashasur sent his accomplices there with his strong command to kill
the Devi Durga brutally on the spot, if She was not killed, She should be
dragged alive by Her hair to the demons’ den. However, a super monster, Uudarga
reached the battlefield with a huge fleet of sixty thousand chariots to take
part in the fight. Ausura Mahahanu brought five million chariots; Asiloma
entered the field with his very large fleet of twenty five million chariots.
Many thousands and thousands of soldier elephants, soldier horses surround the
whole battlefield to fight with the Devi Durga. Now solidly armoured Mahishasur
landed up in the field with the billions and billions of horses, elephants and
chariots on all sides. They in groups surrounded Her and started attacking Her
with their killer weapons. Trillions and trillions of arrows, spears, were
thrown at Her to take Her life. But nothing could dare touch Her skin, nor dared
injure Her as She stood alone impenetrable and indestructible.
With Her
Greatest of the great Powers, energies and zeal She went on defending Herself
from all of them. At the same time she with the Powers of Her Divine Deadly
Weapons struck and cut demons to numerous pieces. No demons could fight her and
win. They were in chaos and were easily defeated and captured. Many were
beheaded, many suffered brutal death with the loss of their eyes, loss of their
upper and lower limbs and even after profuse bleeding. Devi’s totem, the Lion
swelling its mane, growling in anger and turning into its real ferocious form
went on jumping over the demons and killing them in thousands with its
razor-sharp, wild teeth and claws. Many mahausuras were also amputated and
beheaded. Mahishasur was shocked and enraged by the disastrous events on the
battlefield. The Devi Durga sensing his weakness killed rest of the demons more
violently.
Along with
all the demons, all the elephants and all the horses suffered ruthless death;
all the chariots were destroyed to heaps and piles. Large pool of blood began to
flow in the middle of the battlefield and came out to create a large body of
river all over the Heaven and the Earth. As
Mahishasur's armies were struck down effortlessly by Devi Durga, it
became obvious to him that he was not as secure in the Heaven as he had thought
of. Though almost all the demonsand mega demons (Mahausuras) were killed but
Devi faced a little tough time to fight and eliminate Mahishasur, because every
now and then She tried to terminate him with the violent strike ofHer Deadly
weapons, he changed his appearances to many different forms and continued to
fight against Her. He took on the form of a demonic buffalo, and charged at the
divine soldiers of the Devi Durga, wounding them with its horns and killing many
and lashing out with his whip-like tail. Devi Durga’s lion jumped on the
demon-buffalo and engaged him in a fierce battle. While the demon-buffalo was
engaged in fighting the lion, Devi Durga threw Her lasso around his neck and
tried to fasten him so tightly that he would be choked to death. Mahishasur then
held the form of a lion and when Devi Durga beheaded the lion, he escaped in the
form of a man who was immediately faced with a shower of arrows from Devi Durga.
The demon
escaped yet again and then having held the form of a huge elephant hit violently
and repeatedly the Devi Durga's lion with his pair of tusks. She with Her sword
cut the tusks into pieces. The demon reverted once more to the form of the wild
buffalo. He hid himself in the mountains from where he hurled boulders at Durga
with his horns. Durga drank the divine nectar, the gift of Kuber. She then
pounced on Mahishasur, pushing him to the ground with her left leg. She grasped
his head in one hand, pierced him with her sharp trident held in another, and
with yet another of her ten hands she wielded her bright sword and beheaded him
with it. At long last, he fell on the ground with a huge thud that rocked the
whole universe vehemently and died to slow and painful death, and the scattered
surviving remnants of his once invincible army fled in terror.
Finally she succeeded in killing Mahishasur after much
effort.
Ultimately,
the entire world of demons (Ausuras) were defeated and killed to death. The Devi
Mother goddess Durgacried in great joy and happiness for Her great win in the
mass killings of all the evil power permanently from the Heaven, the Earth, and,
at long last, also from the hell. All the Devtas, major and minor burst
into rapturous joy and happiness. They cheerfully
greeted Her and showered flower-rains over their Great Devi. Once again the
Eternal Heavenly Peace and Happiness which had been lost for a century or so to
the devilish hands of the evil power came back to the three abodes ever after.
Contributed By: Amalendu Mitra
amalendumitra@yahoo.com
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