Elements of Hindu Iconography v3.c19.59

v3.c19.59

When Dēvi perceived the elephants, the horse, the foot soldiers and chariots composing the army of the asuras approach her, she at once strung her bow and rained on them a ceaseless shower of arrows. Many of the enemies of the gods she slew with her shafts; others with her sword; and with her various other weapons she caused havoc in their ranks, as her lion brandishing its mane bore her along. . . . . . Thus Kātyāyanī destroyed countless hosts of the bold asuras; and on beholding the battle-field covered with their corpses, she seized a vīṇā and a ḍamaru in joy and laughingly began to play. Wherever she moved, drawing out music from her instruments, ghosts and goblins shouted out in response and danced; and her lion tossed about in sport the lifeless bodies of the slain. But Mahisha, on viewing the destruction of his army, hastened to engage, the goddess in personal combat; and Kātyāyanī, equally eager for the combat, urged on her lion. Then commenced a terrible duel in consequence of which the summits of the mountain were rent beneath their feet, the earth and the ocean trembled, and the very clouds up above became scattered. In vain did the goddess employ her various weapons again and again; the wily art of Mahisha rendered them all innocuous; even when she succeeded in binding him with the noose given her by Varuṇa, carrying the rope round his horns, his muzzle and hoofs, he escaped from the bond; and when she hurled a thunder-bolt at him, he shrank into such a diminutive size that it went past him leaving him uninjured. At length Durgā dismounted from her lion and sprang upon the back of Mahisha, and with her own tender feet so smote his head that he fell senseless on the ground; and then she immediately cut off his head with her sword; and all the hosts of asuras exclaimed, Ah! Ah!".