Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c8.2062

c8.2062

Mahiṣāsura once went to the Vindhyas after conquering all the three worlds. He was accompanied by his ministers, Raktabīja, Caṇḍa, Muṇḍa, Cikṣura and Naraka. They met there the goddess Kātyāyanī. Mahiṣāsura fell in love with the beautiful and well-figured Kātyāyanī and he sent Dundubhi as messenger to the goddess to make her know his desire. Dundubhi approached Kātyāyanī and told her to become the wife of Mahiṣa, the emperor of all the three worlds. Devī replied that she would accept as her husband one who defeated her and that was the custom also in her caste. Mahiṣāsura with a huge army and heavy equipments went to war with her. But Kātyāyanī entered the field alone mounted on her lion and the devas watching her enter the battlefield without wearing even an armour were shocked. Devī went forward reciting the mantra of Viṣṇupañcākṣara given to her by Śiva and lakhs and lakhs of demons were killed by the adroit sword-swinging and the dinning roar of Kātyāyanī. Mahiṣa and his ministers surrounded her and Devī stepping down from the lion started to dance wielding her sword. Swinging her sword to the rhythm of her dance-steps Devī picked up the leading demons one by one and killed them. Seeing that, Mahiṣāsura approached her, burning with rage like the pralayāgni. All the attendants of Devī fled. Those who remained were trampled to death by Mahiṣāsura. Devī at first killed the ministers and then faced Mahiṣāsura. Mahiṣa became an elephant and Devī cut off its trunk. The elephant became a buffalo then. Devī sent a spike and it broke. Even Devī’s Discus, granted to her by Viṣṇu was blunted when it hit the rock-like body of Mahiṣāsura. Varuṇapāśa, Yamadaṇḍa and Indravajra were all alike fruitless against the mighty Mahiṣāsura. Angered Devī jumped on the buffalo form of the demon and drove it to exhaustion and when at last its power of resistance had failed, Devī plunged her spear into the ears of the buffalo and the demon fell dead.