Durga, the most highly worshipped goddess of Indian masses held in alike reverence in all sectarian lines, even Buddhist and Jain, in her form as Durga or in one of her many transforms – the ferocious Tara of Buddhists or the nurturing mother Ambika of Jains, is the ultimate of divine power capable of eradicating every evil and every wrong, and nurturing and sustaining life in whichever form it exists. Not a mere epiphenomenal expansion of a visual culture that the Indian land is known to have now for millenniums, or a disembodied divine authority sustaining in believing minds, Durga is perceived as a dynamic presence with a form, or rather in any form engaged in eradicating the dark and everything adverse to life and sustaining good and righteous.
The term ‘Durga’ brings to mind a multi-armed lion-riding divinity that on one hand is possessed of rare feminine beauty and imperishable youth, and on the other, carries in her hands various instruments of war and on her face the determination to avenge her devotee’s tormenter and punish a wrong-doer, and all combined with a unique quiescence and confidence as if triumph is the foregone conclusion of all her battles against evil. The Puranic tradition inclines to venerate Durga as just one of the names of Devi, the cosmic Divine Female who created, sustained and destroyed. Despite such preference of the Puranas for the term ‘Devi’ for defining the overall vision of the cosmic Divine Female even initially Durga acquires among Devi’s other manifestations a distinction denotative of a class which is not the same as epithets like Jagad-mata, Jagadamba, Vishveshwari, or whatever. The term Durga brings to mind a specific image which these epithets do not, perhaps because they are used with some kind of commonness for Devi’s all forms.
The Devi-Mahatmya in the Markandeya Purana, a fifth-sixth century text (though with his presence on many occasions alluded to in the Mahabharata the date of sage Markandeya seems to be much earlier; maybe, Markandeya was the common appellation of the sages in the line, not the name of an individual sage, or in view of his timeless contribution the name of sage Markandeya was subsequently added), perceives the aggregate cosmic energy as Mahamaya: Vishnu’s ‘shakti’ that the text defines as Devi manifesting in three aspects, viz., Mahalakshmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati, having different forms and appearances but a common objective of avenging the wrong-doer. This in the Mahabharata like early texts and sculptures of the early centuries of the Common Era is the Durga’s role. Quite significant as it is, the Devi-Mahatmya uses the term ‘Durga’, as it uses the term ‘Devi’, in its all sections devoted to either of Mahalakshmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati, which indicates that these are as much the Durga’s manifestations, as they are the Devi’s. The text perceives Devi primarily as the redeemer of ‘durgam’ – the most difficult, a situation, act, or objective, and hence, Devi is Durga – the redeemer of ‘durgam’, in her every aspect.
As regards her antiquity Durga is an entity beyond time. Even the Markandeya Purana that identifies Mahamaya – Devi’s proto form, as Vishnu’s ‘shakti’ contends with specificity that it was her who gave to Vishnu, as also to Brahma and Shiva, their forms. This statement has two implications, one that she preceded not only Vishnu but the great Trinity, and the other, that she was Vishnu’s ‘shakti’ by invocation and by her favour, not by Vishnu’s authority. Thus, by whatever name, the Great Goddess preceded all forms, their creator, sustainer and destroyer, the time that spanned them and the space where they evolved. Ironically, sage Markandeya sought to subordinate her to Vishnu as his ‘shakti’ but overwhelming him, or rather the entire Trinity, the goddess bowed them to her subordination. In the tradition gods, even Trinity, are often seen bowing to her in devotion but Durga is never seen bowing to any, divine or demonic, justifying her name ‘Jaya’.
Obviously, the scale of time is not Durga’s scale. It is only the date of her earliest appearance in a medium, text, or iconography, by which her antiquity is determined. When in the eleventh Canto of the Devi-Mahatmya Devi declares that in the twenty-eighth eon of Vaivasvata Manvantara she would incarnate and kill the demon Durgam and assume Durga as her name, sage Markandeya does not suggest the period of Durga’s emergence as posterior to the period of his text. The concurrent age is Vaivasvata Manvantara but it is only by very complicated astronomical calculations that one can know when exactly its twenty-eighth eon passed, perhaps millions of years ago, and hence, it is not known when Devi assumed Durga as her name. Thus, mythically the Great Goddess manifested as Durga in the twenty-eighth eon of this Manvantara, but it is simply a period beyond human calculation.
Thus, Devi had in any medium or tradition her earliest manifestation as Durga. It seems that the Devi’s form as Durga, a goddess of battlefield always in action, as nurturing mother or as avenging warrior engaging in battle one demon or other, has been conceived in stark contrast to the passive non-operating votive image of the Mother Goddess of Indus settlements, and the nature-deities of the ‘Yajna’ of the Rig-Veda, perhaps around the same time when the other two cults were in greater prevalence. Excavations of Indus or Harappan sites reveal no signs of a warrior goddess, and barring a few contentions, such as makes S. K. Ramachandra Rao who contends in his Durga-Kosha that Durga is one of the goddesses that the Rig-Veda enumerates, broadly Durga is not considered a goddess from the Rig-Vedic pantheon. Whatever the merit of such claims and counter-claims in regard to Durga’s position in the Rig-Veda, there is absolute unanimity in regard to Durga’s presence in the Mahabharata, the great epic datable broadly to sixth-fifth century B.C. The Rig-Veda talked of Vak, or Saraswati, and Shri, another name of Lakshmi, and excavations have revealed signs of a ferocious divinity being worshipped by Indus settlers. However, the Devi-Mahatmya’s models of Mahalakshmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati were different from both. Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati seem to have been modeled after Durga, and Mahakali, is textually too, a transform of the principal goddess of the battlefield, Devi or Durga.
Thus, Devi or her manifestations, Mahalakshmi, Mahakali or Mahasaraswati, are Durga’s forms, and Devi is merely her defining epithet as is Devata of the male divinities. The term ‘Devata’ does not denote a specific divinity because of such Devatas’ plurality. Devi’s singularity makes the term ‘Devi’ synonymous to Durga. Even in Puranic tradition the Devi’s Mahalakshmi, Mahakali and Mahasaraswati manifestations seem to have failed to long retain at least their Durga-like martial role. Mahalakshmi, as Lakshmi and Mahasaraswati, as Saraswati, shed finally their warlike bearing and join Lord Vishnu’s and Brahma’s households with roles completely different from what they had in their proto Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati forms.
In regard to the origin of Durga or Devi there prevail two traditions, one that venerates her as Adi-Shakti – primordial cosmic energy, suggestive of her presence when the Creation had yet to take effect and ever before and after, and the other, suggestive of her creation out of gods’ divine attributes for accomplishing an objective.
As has the Puranic tradition which culminates in the Devi Bhagavata, millions of years after the Great Deluge, and all forms, except the all-encompassing ocean and abyssal darkness, perished, floating on a banyan leaf on the surface of the ocean of milk there emerged Vishnu as child known in the tradition as Bala Mukunda. Bewildered he looked around and his mind questioned, ‘Who am I?’, and ‘Who created me and what for?’ When wrestling with a volley of questions from within, Vishnu heard an ethereal voice that announced : ‘Sarvam khalvidamevaham, Nanyadasti sanatanam’, that is, ‘All that is, I am, there is nothing eternal but me’. Soon after, Vishnu had in his vision the form of a lustrous youthful four-armed female divinity carrying a conch, disc, club and lotus, and clad in divine costume and ornaments, and with twenty-one celestial powers in attendance. Vishnu instantly realised that she was the Adi-Shakti, Devi, and paid her homage. She revealed to Vishnu his identity and role. According to this tradition, Durga, the Adishakti’s initial manifestation, preceded time and all forms, and had manifestations, not birth or origin.
In Durga’s icons, votive or aesthetic, her eighteen-armed lion-riding form, killing the buffalo demon Mahisha, known in the tradition as ‘Mahishasura-Mardini’, prevails over her all other forms. Even her aesthetic beauty is best represented in her Mahishasura-Mardini form for it combines sublime beauty with sublime force, and of course, strangeness of anatomy with absolute physical balance. This form of Durga is, hence, as much the theme of aesthetic art as of sanctum images. Her brilliantly clad and ornamented form is conceived with youthful vigour, golden-hued, rare beauty and divine quiescence on the face. Her images are modeled with pot-like large breasts, as filled with milk, representing her as the feeding mother as also her absolute womanhood.
As the Devi-Mahatmya has it, when in battlefield, Durga creates thousands of hands, or as many as would enable her to destroy the enemy. Hence, her figures are conceived as multi-armed, their number varying usually from four to eighteen, that is, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, sixteen or eighteen. The attributes she carries in her hands are variously listed in different texts. The Markandeya Purana itself has variations. Against her eighteen-armed Mahishasura-Mardini form carrying rosary, axe, mace, arrow, thunderbolt, lotus, bow, chain, noose, rod, ‘shakti’, sword, shield, conch, bell, honey-pot, spear and disc, as visualized in the Devi-Mahatmya part, she has been conceived elsewhere in the Markandeya Purana merely with ten arms carrying in them sword, disc, mace, arrow, bow, rod, spear, ‘bhushundi’, head and conch, and at another place, just with four arms carrying in them conch, disc, sword and trident.
Durga is sometimes seen carrying serpent, dagger, goad among others besides a crescent on her coiffure and a third eye on her forehead: her Shaivite attributes. In India’s most parts her sanctum images are either operative as when killing demon Mahisha or static, as seated on her lion, though in both cases she is represented as carrying her essential weapons as would a goddess of battlefield. In South, she is usually lotus-seated and is worshipped by various other names. In folk traditions of Bengal, Orissa, Bihar – Mithila region in special, Uttar Pradesh and tribal belts of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh Durga is the most popularly worshipped deity. Her cow-dung images, symbolic of fertility and purity, those in colours or in ceramic medium, might be seen adorning the walls of any dwelling, a mud-house or a sophisticated mansion.
