Devi Mahatmya

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The Devī Māhātmya or Durgā Saptashatī is a Hindu scripture in Sanskrit containing 700 (sapta=7, shata=100) verses, arranged into 13 chapters. It extols goddess Devi or Durga and her manifestations like Kali (devi=goddess, māhātmya=grandeur). The Devī Māhātmya has been drawn from the 3400 odd verses of the Mārkandeya Purana, which is a set of stories being related by the sage Markandeya to Jaimini and his students (who are in the form of birds). The stories go through the different incarnations of Manu, called manvantaras. In the eighth manvantara, the tale of Durga appears, and the verses in Devi Mahatmya are drawn from this. This text is also known as ChanDI (another name for Durga) or Chandi-Patha (pATha=reading; this may refer also to the act of (ritual) reading).

The oldest surviving manuscript of the Devi Māhātmya, on palm-leaf, in an early Bhujimol script, Bihar or Nepal, 11th century.

The seven hundred verses narrate various exploits of Durga, along with passages that extol the virtues of praying to her. The stories are told with great violence and detail, building up the great powers of her adversaries, and mounting suspense though in the end Devi always comes out as the winner. They state the background of her emergence, where each of the gods contribute their principal weapons and powers on the goddess.

Note that the word asura in the Indian canon is not quite the same as demon, asuras have many virtues, and often live in great austerity and are beneficiaries of many blessings from the gods. Then some of them may become invincible, and it is possibly this immense power that corrupts them.

1 The thirteen chapters
2 Prefatory Matter and Appendices
3 See also
4 References

[edit] The thirteen chapters

A rough breakdown of the chapters is as follows:

Chapter 1: Like many other texts, the stories are embedded in a conversation where a sage (Medha) is narrating the story to a king (Surat) and a merchant (Samadhi). The sage tells them how worship of the Devi is paramount, and tells them the story of the killing of madhu-kaiTabha, two demons who had stolen the Vedas. Vishnu goes to fight them, and is almost defeated, at which point he seeks the help of Chandi. Chandi glances at the demons amorously (she is also very beautiful) and the demons are enchanted. Then Vishnu decapitates them with his Chakra.
Chapter 2: The creation of Durga and the defeat of Mahishasura's army. Mahishasura is the buffalo (mahisha) demon who defeats the gods by a boon from Brahma and establishes himself as the ruler of all three worlds. It is to battle him that Devi is incarnated, from the assembled powers of all the gods. Mahishasura sends his soldiers to tackle this upstart goddess, but between Durga and her lion, all his best generals are killed, the ground flowing with their blood.
Chapter 3: The killing of Mahishasura himself. Finally Mahishasura comes out. A fierce battle rages in which Mahishasura throws mountains at her, but these are powdered by Durga. Using his magical powers, he becomes an elephant, a lion, a human. He injures Durga's mount, the lion. But in the end Durga pins him down with her foot and kills him with a spear.
Chapter 4 Devistuti (stuti=praise), the gods led by Indra chant hymns praising the Goddess
Chapter 5: Messenger to the Goddess. Here the gods are in trouble again. Shumbha and Nishumbha, two other demons, have again defeated the gods and overtaken heaven. As Durga is approaching their court, they come to know of her ravishing beauty and Shumbha sends a messenger to bring her to him, but she will not go. The famous Devi prayer appears here:

Ya devi sarvabhuteshu <shakti>rUpeNa saMasthita

O goddess of all forms now you appear as <energy>

The hymn is repeated many times, with the quantity <xxx> being substituted with some of the many other characteristics of devi such as shAnti (peace), bhakti (devotion), etc.

Chapter 6: Dhumrolochana, a general of Shumbha, is dispatched to get this beautiful woman, by force if needed. He tries persuasion and fails. When he attacks, he is killed.
Chapter 7: The killing of chanDa and muNDa - two asuras from Shumbha-Nishumba's court. These demons are killed by the Devi in her Kali form, and Kali is hailed as Chamundi.
Chapter 8: The killing of Raktavīja. Raktavīja is a demon who has the power that every drop of blood from him that falls on the ground becomes a new Raktavīja (rakta=blood, vija=seed; each drop of blood is a seed from which a new whole will sprout). Durga is helped now by her Chamundī or Kali incarnation, who drinks up all the spilling blood by making her tongue into the ground. Finally Durga kills him.
Chapter 9: The killing of Nishumbha. When Durga pierces Nishumbha with an arrow, he becomes a giant demon. Durga kills this with her sword, and then finally kills Nishumbha.
Chapter 10: The killing of Shumbha. Seeing the death of Nishumbha, Shumbha is in a terrible rage and attacks the goddess, but also he is curious as to who she is. She reveals all her forms to Shumbha and says that she cannot be defeated, because even Shumbha's soul is inherent in her. In the end Shumbha too is killed and the gods celebrate.
Chapter 11: Hymns in praise of NarayaNI (nArAyaNI-stuti): NarayaNI (wife of Narayan, Vishnu), is another name for Devi. She is always there to help the gods overcome the forces of evil. She describes many future acts, that she is destined to perform in the future, including the incarnation of Vishnu as Krishna.
Chapter 12: The recitation of Durga (BhagavatI-vAkya - bhagavatI is another name for Devi), outlines certain days in the lunisolar calendar that are more auspicious for the worship of the goddess, particularly navaratri.
Chapter 13: Boons of the Goddess: As Medha rishi is telling this narrative, the king Surath (who has been deposed) and the merchant Samadhi (who has lost his possessions) are listening. Now the Devi bestows boons on them because of their piety in performing her worship. Surath gets his kingdom back, but Samasa instead of wanting his wealth, wants only more knowledge.

The Devi Māhātmya is believed to have crystallized in its present form during the 9th-10th century, and is believed to be originally authored by rishi Markandeya. However, the original Markandeya Purana text is much older, and one of the verses in the Devi Mahatmya appears in an inscription (dated 608) on the Dadhimatimata temple in the former kingdom of Jodhpur.

[edit] Prefatory Matter and Appendices

As a ritual text, there are many versions, maintaining the 700 verses at the core, but often prefaced by other important hymns such as the Argala-stotra in which the famous prayer to Chandi is repeated:

rUpaM dehi jayaM dehi Jasho dehi dviSho jehi

(grant us beauty, grant us victory, grant us fame, and vanquish our enemies)

Also prefatory is a collection of 50 verses called devi-kavacha (kavacha = protection amulet); this verse invokes the devi in all her incarnations to protect an equally long list of directions from which danger can come, parts of the body that may be endangered, etc. Singing the devikavacha is supposed to protect one from misfortunes.

At the end of a traditional pATha or recitation of the text (often executed with great dramatic flourish, especially in the section where asuras are being killed), one invokes the aparAdha-kShama-paNa-stotra (crime-forgiveness-chant):

JadakSharam paribhraShTam mAtrAhInan~cha Jadbhavet

pUrNam bhavatu tatsarvam tvatprasAdAn mahesvarI

Any words mispronounced or left out, however small, please complete these all with your own grace, o goddess!