Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.2058

c8.2058

3) Pārvatī changes into Gaurī. Śiva and Pārvatī spent their honeymoon travelling throughout the world. Years went by like that. One day Śiva in a spirit of sport called Pārvatī ‘Kālī, Kālī’. Kālī meant black one and Pārvatī was as black as sapphire. Pārvatī misunderstood Śiva addressing her thus two times and thought, perhaps, Śiva did not like her black body and trembling with grief said “If a wound is made by an arrow it will heal in due course; if the top of a tree is chopped off it will again blossom when the season comes; but the wound in the minds of others by harsh words is never healed. It was not my fault that I was born black and I would never again come near you with this black body. I am going.” Saying thus with a firm determination, she rose up into the air and travelling for some time reached a big forest. She created by her reciting the smaraṇamantra four attendants for her named Somaprabhā, Jayā, Vijayā and Jayantī and started doing penance there. She practised severe austerities standing on one foot for a hundred years and then Brahmā appeared before her and sought the reason why Pārvatī, wife of Parameśvara should do such severe penance and then she narrated to him all that had happened. Brahmā after hearing her story told her thus:—