Devī Māhātmya

The Devī Māhātmya is the glory of Devī, the supreme Bhagavatī. It sits inside the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa as the account of how Sāvarṇi Manu came to be born. It shows her supremacy in three great battles: the killing of Madhu and Kaiṭabha, the killing of Mahishāsura, and the killing of Śumbha and Niśumbha.

The frame of the account is the meeting of King Suratha and the merchant Samādhi with the ṛshi Medhasa in a forest. Medhasa teaches them about Devī’s mahāmāyā (her great power of delusion) and tells them the three episodes of her appearing.

The frame: King Suratha and Samādhi

King Suratha of the Caitta line had ruled with justice and care for his people. Then enemies, the Kolāvidhvamsī, rose against him and defeated him, and his own ministers plotted to seize his treasury. He lost his kingdom and fell into despair. He wandered into the forest and came to the āśrama of the ṛshi Medhasa, where he rested in the quiet of the hermitage.

At about the same time a merchant named Samādhi came to the same āśrama. Samādhi had been a rich householder. His wife and sons, greedy for his wealth, had cast him out and taken everything he had. Yet his heart still longed for them. He could not free himself from his love for the family that had thrown him out.

Suratha and Samādhi both came to Medhasa with the same burning question: “Why, O ṛshi, does my mind return again and again to what has harmed me? The king longs for his stolen kingdom. I long for the family that betrayed me. Even though we know our folly, we cannot stop feeling this pull. What is this power that binds the wise and the unwise alike?”

Medhasa answered with kindness. This is Mahāmāyā, he said, the supreme power of Bhagavatī, who deludes all beings without exception. She is not a force outside creation. She is the very śakti (power) that fills creation. By her power Bhagavān Vishṇu himself sleeps during the pralaya (the dissolution of the world), and by her power Brahmā begins creation. She draws all beings into the world of saṃsāra through the bonds of attachment. Yet she is also the kind Devī who gives moksha (liberation) when she is pleased by bhakti (devotion) and tapas. To show her nature and her glory, Medhasa then told the three great episodes of her appearing.

First episode: Madhu-Kaiṭabha Vadha

At the end of a kalpa (a day of Brahmā), the three worlds had melted into the waters of the great mahāpralaya. Bhagavān Vishṇu lay asleep on the back of Śesha, floating on the shoreless waters. Brahmā sat on the lotus that had grown from Vishṇu’s navel, thinking of creation. In this stillness two asuras, Madhu and Kaiṭabha, were born from the ear-wax of the sleeping Vishṇu. They were strong, proud and drunk with their own power. They came before Brahmā and threatened to eat him.

Brahmā could do nothing. He could not wake Vishṇu, because the force that held Vishṇu in sleep was Yoganidrā, the great Devī herself, the śakti of cosmic sleep, who rested in Vishṇu’s eyes. Brahmā turned to Yoganidrā and offered her a great stotra (hymn of praise): “You are the cause of all creation and dissolution. You are the sleep that rests in all eyes. You are twilight, you are śraddhā, you are the highest vidyā, you are Mahālakshmī, you are all-pervading Śakti. Rise now, O Devī, and let go of this Vishṇu, for the worlds are in danger.”

Yoganidrā was pleased with Brahmā’s prayer. She left Vishṇu’s body and entered the cosmos. Vishṇu’s eyes opened. He saw Madhu and Kaiṭabha in front of him, threatening Brahmā, and he fought them. The battle lasted five thousand divine years. The two asuras, deluded by Devī, became generous and offered Bhagavān Vishṇu a vara (a boon). He seized the moment and asked for the vara of killing them. They agreed, but on one condition: they would not be killed on wet ground, because the whole earth lay under the waters of the pralaya.

Bhagavān Vishṇu, who knows all, made his thighs grow wide so that they rose above the floodwaters. He laid both asuras on his thighs and killed them there. The marrow (medas) of their huge bodies poured into the cosmic ocean, and from it the earth was formed. This is why the earth is called Medinī, “born of medas”.

Second episode: Mahishāsura Vadha

The second great episode of Devī’s glory is about Mahishāsura, the buffalo asura. He performed great tapas and received varas that made him unbeatable by any male being. With this protection he raised his armies, conquered svarga and drove Indra from his throne. The devas were thrown out of their places in svarga and lost their shares of soma and yajña. They wandered the earth in shame. They went first to Brahmā, and then together to Vishṇu and Śiva, and with tears they told how Mahishāsura had conquered them.

While the devas wept before Vishṇu and Śiva, a great anger rose in each of the devas who were gathered there. This anger, this gathered teja (radiance), streamed out of each of them as blazing light. The tejas of all the devas joined into one overwhelming brilliance, and from it the form of Devī appeared. Her face came from the teja of Śiva, her arms from the teja of Vishṇu, her feet from the teja of Brahmā, her waist from the teja of Indra, her hair from the teja of Yama, her lower legs from the teja of Varuṇa, and so on. Each part of her form was given life by a different divine power.

Then the devas armed her. Śiva gave his triśūla (trident). Vishṇu gave his cakra. Varuṇa gave his pāśa (noose) and śaṅkha (conch). Yama gave his daṇḍa (staff). Agni gave his śakti (spear). Vāyu gave a bow and two quivers full of arrows. Indra gave his vajra (thunderbolt) and the bell of Airāvata. Kubera gave a cup of wine. Brahmā gave his kamaṇḍalu (water pot) and rosary. Kāla gave a khaḍga (sword) and a shield. Viśvakarmā gave a bright paraśu (axe) and an unbreakable kavaca (armour). The oceans gave a garland of lotuses that never fade, and fine clothes. Himāvān gave a lion to be her mount. The sun deva filled every pore of her body with his rays. So Devī, fully armed, filled the three worlds with her great form and the roar of her lion.

Mahishāsura’s generals, Cikshura, Cāmara and others, attacked Devī with their huge armies. She destroyed army after army and filled the battlefield with the slain. She drank wine with reddened eyes and laughed. The asuras fell like mountains.

At last Mahishāsura himself entered the battle. He took one form after another to confuse her. First he was the great buffalo, then a lion, then a man with sword and shield, then a great elephant. Each time Devī struck and wounded him, he changed his form. In the end she pressed her foot on his neck. As he half came out of the buffalo body in human form, she pierced him with her triśūla and cut off his head with her khaḍga.

The devas gathered and offered Devī a great stotra. They praised her as the cause of creation and dissolution, the support (ādhāra) of all that is, the mother who is beyond thought, the supreme Caṇḍikā, Ambikā and Mahāmāyā.

Third episode: Śumbha-Niśumbha Vadha

The third episode goes deepest of the three. The brothers Śumbha and Niśumbha received great varas through tapas, conquered the three worlds and drove the devas out of svarga. The devas lost their share of soma and their portions of yajña. They fled to the Himālaya and prayed to Devī there, in her form as Ambikā, the beautiful one, who is also called Kauśikī.

When Devī appeared in the Himālaya, Sugrīva, the spy of Śumbha, saw her and told his king of her matchless beauty. Śumbha was taken with her and sent Sugrīva to her with an offer of marriage. Devī answered with her famous vow: “I made a resolution long ago that only the one who defeats me in battle and breaks my pride may take me. Let Śumbha, if he is able, come and do so.”

Śumbha was furious and sent one general after another against her. The general Dhūmrāksha attacked with a mighty army. Devī’s lion leapt on him and she killed him. Then Śumbha sent the fearsome Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, who came forward to seize Devī herself. When she saw them come, Devī’s face darkened with terrible anger. From her frowning brow came the devī Kālikā. She was black as the darkest night. Her body was thin as a skeleton. Her tongue hung out of her wide, open mouth, and her eyes were sunken and blazing. She wore a garland of skulls and carried a staff topped with a skull and a great khaḍga. Kālikā rushed into the armies with terrible laughter, eating soldiers and elephants. She seized Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa by the hair and cut off their heads. She brought the heads to Devī. Devī was pleased and said: “Since you have brought me the heads of Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, you shall be known as Cāmuṇḍā in all the worlds.”

Then the great commander Raktabīja entered the battle. He had a terrible vara: every drop of his blood that fell on the earth at once gave birth to a new asura just like him. Devī’s weapons struck him again and again, and each wound flooded the battlefield with new bodies. Hundreds of Raktabījas filled the field, and it was impossible to beat him by ordinary fighting. Devī then told Cāmuṇḍā to open her huge mouth wide. As Devī went on striking Raktabīja, Cāmuṇḍā spread her mouth across the battlefield and drank every drop of blood before it could reach the earth. With all his blood gone, Raktabīja was drained and killed.

During the great battle with Śumbha’s armies, divine mothers came out of the śaktis of each of the devas who were gathered. Each had the exact form and the exact weapons of her deva. Brahmāṇī came from Brahmā, Māheśvarī from Śiva, Kaumārī from Skanda, Vaishṇavī from Vishṇu, Vārāhī from Varāha, Nārasiṃhī from Narasiṃha, and Aindrī from Indra. These seven divine mothers, the Saptamātṛkās, joined Devī’s host and fought with great fury.

Niśumbha fought Devī face to face and was killed. Then Śumbha himself came before her, mad with anger. As they fought, he taunted her: “You are proud, Devī, but you fight with the help of others. That is no true valour!” Devī looked at him with calm eyes and answered:

Ekā’haṃ jagati

“I alone am in all the world. Who else is there?” Then she drew all the Saptamātṛkā-śaktis and the other divine powers back into herself. All those separate forms dissolved. They were none other than her own vibhūtis (manifestations of her power). “Behold, I fight alone, as I have always been alone,” she said. Then she killed Śumbha in single combat.

Devī’s varas and the phalaśruti

After the great victory the devas offered another great stotra. Devī was pleased and gave them varas. She promised the devas that she would return in future ages when they needed her. She would be born from Yaśodā’s womb as Śāmbhavī, to kill the sons of Vipracitti and eat the asuras. She would appear as Bhīmādevī in the Himālaya. In a far-off age she would appear as Bhrāmarī and kill the asura Aruṇa with swarms of bees. She gave the devas back their places in svarga.

Then she spoke to Suratha and Samādhi. Suratha asked for two varas: to win back his kingdom in this very life by defeating the enemies who had taken it, and to be born in his next life as Sāvarṇi Manu, the eighth Manu. Devī gave him both. The merchant Samādhi had heard the whole teaching with a purified mind. He asked only for jñāna (knowledge) and for complete freedom from the delusion of “I” and “mine”. Devī gave him freedom from māyā.

The ṛshi Medhasa then declared that this whole teaching, the Devī Māhātmya, is itself the means of moksha. Whoever hears it, recites it or keeps it in the heart is freed from all troubles, all fears and the sorrows of saṃsāra. This was the very teaching that let Suratha be born as the eighth Manu, Sāvarṇi Manu. So the Devī Māhātmya sits inside the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa as the account of the origin of that Manu.

Sources

• Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Chapters 78–90
• Chapters 78–79: the frame story of Suratha and Samādhi
• Chapter 80: Madhu-Kaiṭabha Vadha
• Chapters 82–83: Mahishāsura Vadha
• Chapters 84–88: Śumbha-Niśumbha Vadha
• Chapters 89–90: Devī’s varas and the phalaśruti