Devibhagavatapurana 5.18.26

5.18.26

vyāsa uvāca |
ityuktaḥ sa tayā devyā dhanurādāya dānavaḥ |
yuddhakāmaḥ sthitastatra saṅgrāmāṅgaṇabhūmiṣu ||

Vyâsa said:-- O King! Hearing thus the Devî’s words, the Dânava took up his bow and came to the battle, fully stretching the string of his bow up to his ears, and began to shoot sharpened arrows with great force at the Devî. The Devî, too, hurled with anger, arrows tipped with iron and cut off the Asura’s arrows to pieces. The fight between them rose to such a terrible pitch that it caused terror to both the Devas and the Dânavas, trying hard to be victorious over each other. In the midst of the terrible encounter, the demon Durdhara came up to fight and made the Devî angry and shot arrows, all terribly poisonous and sharpened on stones, at Her. The Bhagavatî, then, got very angry and hit him hard with sharp arrows. Durdhara, struck thus, fell down dead on the battlefield like a mountain top. The demon Trinetra, well skilled in the uses of arrows and weapons, seeing him killed, came up to fight and shot at the Great Goddess with seven arrows. Before these arrows came on Her, She cut them to pieces with Her sharp arrows and by Her trident killed Trinetra. Trinetra thus killed, Andhaka quickly came in the battlefield and struck violently on the head of the lion with his iron club. The lion killed that powerful Andhaka by striking the demon with his nails and, out of anger, began to eat his flesh. Mahisâsura became greatly astonished at the death of these Asuras and began to shoot pointed arrows, sharpened on stone, at Her. The Devî Ambikâ cut his arrows into two before they came on Her and struck the Demon on his breast by Her club. That vile Mahisâsura, the tormentor of the Devas, fell in a swoon under the stoke of the club but patiently bore it and, at the next moment, came again and struck the lion on his head by his club. The lion, too, by his nails rent that great Asura to pieces. Mahisâsura, then, quitting the man-form took up the lion-form and by his claws cut the Devî’s lion and wounded him very much by his nails. On Mahisâsura taking up this lion-form, the Devî became very angry and began to shoot arrows after arrows at him all very terrible, sharp and like poisonous snakes. Then the Asura quitting the lion form assumed the appearance of a male elephant, oozing out juice from his temples and began to hurl the mountain tops by his trunk. Seeing the mountain peaks thus hurled on Her, She cut them off to pieces by Her sharp arrows and began to laugh. The Devî’s lion on the other hand, sprang on the head of the elephant Mahisa and by his claws rent him to pieces. To kill the Devî’s lion, then, Mahisa quitted his elephant-form and assumed the appearance of a Sarabha, more powerful and terrible than lion. The Devî seeing that Sarabha became angry and struck on the head of that Sarabha with Her axe; the Sarabha, too, attacked the Devî. Their fight became horrible; Mahisâsura, then, assumed the appearance of a buffalo and struck the Bhagavatî by his horns. That horrible Asura, of hideous appearance, swinging his tail, began to attack the thin bodied Devî. That violent Asura caught hold of the mountain peaks by his tail and, whirling them round and round, hurled them on the Devî. That vicious soul, then, maddened with his strength, laughed incessantly and addressed thus:-- “O Devî! Be steady in the battlefield. I will send you today unto death, and your youth and beauty too. You are an illiterate fellow as you have come maddened to fight with me. Really you are deluded in your pretensions that you are very strong; this idea of yours is absolutely false. I will kill you first and the hypocrite Devas after who want to vanquish me by standing up a woman in their front.”