Each has a symbolic meaning important to Hinduism; these are the most significant:. In Hindu art and iconography , Durga is frequently depicted standing atop or riding a tiger or lion, which represents power, will, and determination.
In riding this fearsome beast, Durga symbolizes her mastery over all these qualities. Her bold pose is called Abhay Mudra , which means "freedom from fear. With its numerous deities, there is no end of holidays and festivals in the Hindu calendar. As one of the faith's most popular goddesses, Durga is celebrated many times in the year. The most notable festival in her honor is Durga Puja, a four-day celebration held in September or October, depending on when it falls on the Hindu lunisolar calendar.
During Durga Puja, Hindus celebrate her victory over evil with special prayers and readings, decorations at temples and homes, and dramatic events recounting Durga's legend. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Her name is derived from the chandra half moon in her forehead in the shape of a ghanta bell.
Chandraghanta is charming, has a golden bright complexion, and rides a lion. Like Durga, Chandraghanta has multiple limbs, usually 10, each holding a weapon, and three eyes. She is all-seeing and ever-vigilant, ready to battle evil from whatever direction. Kushmanda is the fourth form of the mother goddess, and her name means "creator of the universe," for she is the one who brought light to the dark cosmos. Like other manifestations of Durga, Kushmanda has multiple limbs usually eight or 10 , in which she holds weapons, glitter, a rosary, and other holy objects.
The glitter is particularly significant because it represents the sparkling light that she brings to the world. Skandamata is the mother of Skanda or Lord Kartikeya, who was chosen by gods as their commander-in-chief in the war against the demons. She is worshipped on the fifth day of Navaratri. Emphasizing her pure and divine nature, Skanda Mata is seated on a lotus, and she has four arms and three eyes. She holds the infant Skanda in her right upper arm and a lotus in her right hand, which is slightly raised upward.
With her left arm, she grants blessings to the Hindu faithful, and she holds a second lotus in her left hand. Katyayani is worshipped on the sixth day of Navaratri. Like Kalaratri, who is worshipped on the following night, Katyayani is a fearsome sight, with wild hair and 18 arms, each clutching a weapon.
Born in a fit of divine rage and anger, she emits a radiant light from her body from which darkness and evil cannot hide. Despite her appearance, Hindus believe that she can bestow a sense of calm and inner peace upon all who worship her. Like Kushmanda, Katyayani rides a lion, ready at all times to confront evil. Kalaratri is also known as Shubhamkari; her name means "one who does good.
This can certainly be confusing, but one way to understand this concept is to consider each individual goddess as a manifestation of the Great Goddess, Maha Devi. Each manifestation of Maha Devi has her own name, form, function, and anecdotal identity within Hindu religious literature.
Another example of the dualistic nature of Hindu goddesses is the seemingly conflicting aspects of their character. All Hindu goddesses are motherly, and yet many of them, including Durga, engage in battle as warriors, and thereby cause suffering. The goddess is both intimate and transcendent. Durga is a particularly important goddess. She is the star of a major religious text of praise called the Devi Mahatmya, which dates back to the 5th century. The Devi Mahatmya is very important because it is the first crystallized text devoted to a goddess.
The Devi Mahatmya is part of a larger text called the Murkandeya Purana. Nevertheless, each Goddess has a specific cosmic function in the universal harmony. The traditional sequence of the ten Goddesses is:.
Another such classification of the mother Goddess based on the various functions in protecting the cosmos and keeping the divine cosmic cycle running is the basis of the Nava Durga or the Nine Durgas. These nine goddesses, who actually are forms of Goddess Durga are propitiated on each day of a popular Hindu festival called the Navaratri. Shailputri : As daughter putri of the Himalaya mountains Shail , Parvati or Hemvati represents the first of the nine Durgas.
She is depicted as holding a trident and a lotus in each of her two hands and is shown mounted on a bull. Brahmacharini : The name indicates the phase of Parvati's life when she was indulging in severe austerities to appease Lord Shiva into marrying her.
She had pledged that she would remain unmarried Brahmacharini till Lord Shiva gives his consent to marrying Parvati. She is shown as holding a water pot Kumbha in one hand and a rosary in the other. She is considered as a holder of knowledge and wisdom. Rudrakhsa rosary beads form her favorite ornamentation. Chandraghanta : As Chadraghanta, the goddess is depicted as having golden skin and with a moon-crescent near her forehead.
She is shown as having three eyes and ten hands, eight of which carry weapons and two of which form gestures of giving boons and stopping harms. She is shown as sitting on a tiger. She is usually associated with the giver of knowledge, bliss and serenity. Kushmanda : The fourth Durga is known as Kushmanda. She is depicted as emanating a cosmic aura and is depicted as having eight hands, seven of which carry weapons while the eighth carries a rosary. Skanda Mata : Skanda Mata literally means the mother of Skanda.
Skanda was the son of Lord Shiva and Parvati and was the leader of the army of gods. The goddess is shown as having four hands, two of which carry lotuses while two are in defending and granting gestures. She is shown sitting on a lion with her son Skanda in her lap.
Katyayani : Katyaynai is so named because of her stay at the hermitage of sage Katyayan for the purpose of penance. She is sometimes also said to be the daughter of sage Katyayan. She also is shown astride a lion and has three eyes and four arms. In one hand she holds a lotus and in another a weapon.
The third and fourth hands show defending and granting gestures. Kaalratri : The seventh Durga, Kaalratri, is depicted as having black skin with bountiful hair, four arms and astride a donkey. In one hand she holds a cleaver and in another a burning torch. With the other two hands she forms gestures of granting and defending. She represents the enemy of darkness and ignorance. Maha Gauri : Maha Gauri is depicted as the fairest of the nine Durgas and is often dressed in white or green.
She emanates peace and compassion and is shown with three eyes and as riding a bull. She also has four arms, one of which carries a tambourine and another a trident. The other two form defending and granting gestures. It is said that when Parvati, consort of Lord Shiva, became dirty while observing penance, Lord Shiva bathed her with the holy waters of river Ganga.
Parvati's body turned lightning bright and thus she came to be known as Maha Gauri Gauri means fair. Siddhidatri : Siddhidatri means the giver of siddhis magical or spiritual powers for the control of self, others and the forces of nature. The Goddess is sometimes shown atop a lion and sometimes atop a lotus.
She is shown as having four arms, which hold a club, a conch shell and a lotus. The fourth hand forms a gesture of granting.
Siddhidatri is considered to be the most powerful of all the nine forms of Durga. Durga is said to be extraordinarily beautiful; she does not use her beauty for seduction, but rather entrapment. She entices her victims and then defeats them. She rides a lion, and it appears whenever her strengths are needed. Her role is not that of creator, but rather that of a maintainer: she maintains cosmic order by defeating demons that plague the universe. Durga is not only a powerful force for cosmic order but also a protector of her devotees.
She listens to her devotees and attends to their needs. The Devi Mahatmya describes her as a personal savior who will save her devotees from forest fires, wild animals, robbers, imprisonment, execution, and battle.
Goddess Durga keeps up the play of the divine universal God through the three attributes of Nature, namely, Satva equilibrium and serenity , Rajas dynamism and kinesis and Tamas ignorance and inertia.
Knowledge, peace, lust, anger, greed, egoism and pride, all are Her forms. Maha Saraswati is Her Sattviki Shakti or power of equilibrium. Maha Lakshmi is Her Rajasik Shakti or power of activity. All these are feminine forms. Shiva's power is Shakti, the dynamic creative mother aspect of the Godhead. It is she who creates and at the time of dissolution, it is she who swallows her own creation. Shakti cannot exist without Shiva and Shiva cannot personify without Shakti.
Therefore Hinduism proclaims the highest personification of God, the supreme energy, to be feminine.
Hinduism is the only religion in the world, which conceptualizes the supreme form of Divinity to be a woman. This demonstrates the elevated status of women in Hinduism as a religion. An important festival of the Hindus associated with goddess Durga is that of Durga Puja, which has been celebrated for ages by Hindus.
In the Hindu epics Mahabharata and Ramayana there are various references to goddess Durga. When the Pandavas entered the capital of Virata for their period of one year in disguise they propitiated Durga who appeared before them and granted them boons. Again, at the commencement of the great war of Kurukshetra, Lord Krishna advised Arjuna to worship Goddess Durga to ensure victory in battle.
The festival of Durga Puja is popularly attributed to a tale from the Hindu epic, Ramayana. Lord Rama went to Lanka, the kingdom of Ravana - the demon king, to rescue his abducted wife, Sita. Before starting for his battle with Ravana, Rama wanted the blessings of goddess Durga. He came to know that the goddess would be pleased only if she is worshipped with one hundred eight 'Neel Kamal' or blue lotuses. Rama, after travelling the whole world, could gather only one hundred seven of them.
He finally decided to offer one of his eyes, which resembled a blue lotus. Durga, being pleased with the devotion of Rama, appeared before him and blessed him. The battle with Ravana started on the 'Saptami' the seventh day after the new moon night just prior to the Autumn festival of Durga Puja and Ravana was finally killed on the 'Sandhikshan' i.
Ravana was cremated on Dashami the tenth day after new moon. Since the period of this worship was different from the conventional period of worship of Durga during the spring - 'Basanta' , this puja is also known as 'Akal-Bodhan' or worship Bodhan at an unconventional time. Durga Puja is a Hindu festival observed in Ashwin Navaratri month of October and is celebrated all over India with great joy especially in West Bengal.
The festival is also popular by other names like Dusshera and Navaratri. The ten days of festivity are dedicated to the supreme mother goddess Durga. Worship of goddess Durga signifies the process by which the divine potential within every being removes its layers of ignorance and achieves the state of self-realization.
Hindus celebrate this occasion at an auspicious time every year to constantly remind themselves of the significance of this very process. They contemplate the progress made on their spiritual journey and celebrate with great joy the victory of the supreme consciousness over the demons of ignorance. The festival is also a reminder that evil can never triumph over the power of truth. Durga Puja is the greatest Hindu festival in which God is adored as Mother.
Hinduism is the only religion in the world, which has emphasized to such an extent the motherhood of God. Perhaps the greatest testament to the power of Durga Puja is that even today the Mother is worshipped by billions of Hindus world wide in exactly the same manner as she was thousands of years ago.
Images of Durga usually have an extra divine eye in the middle of the forehead. There can be four, eight, ten, eighteen, or twenty arms.
The most common objects held in the hands are a conch, discus, trident, bow, arrow, sword, dagger, shield, rosary, wine cup, and bell. Her hair is in Karandamukuta, a crown style of hairdo. She wears gorgeous red clothes and several ornaments, and stands on a lotus or the head of a buffalo or rides a lion. There are endless aspects of Durga described in the Puranas and Agamas ancient Hindu texts and the iconography is consequently varied.
The most important form of Durga is as Mahishasuramardini or the slayer of Mahishasura the demon king. The image is of the Goddess cutting off the head of the buffalo-demon. This image usually most commonly is shown with eight or ten arms, and the hands hold weapons and a lotus. Mahishasura, the demon, may be shown half emerging in his human form from the carcass of his former buffalo form.
At the Durga Puja, the most important festival of Durga, she is shown with four other deities - usually smaller in size than that of goddess Durga. Two deities are placed on each side of the main idol of goddess Durga. These deities are Kartikeya, Ganesha, Saraswati, and Lakshmi, who are commonly identified as her children.
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