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For Everyone
Gita verses, universal mantras, festivals.
1048 items · showing 1–24
The gods cannot defeat the buffalo demon, so their combined fury becomes a single goddess, armed by every one of them. The central story of Navaratri, as the Durga Saptashati tells it.
Nine nights, nine forms of Durga, one book recited across them, and a tenth day of victory. Where each piece comes from, and how differently India keeps the same festival.
Ten goddesses counted as one set — a girl of sixteen, an old widow, and a goddess holding her own severed head. What the grouping means, where it comes from, and which popular version of the story is misplaced.
Offered a kingdom he had never asked for, he spent fourteen years in a hut — and ruled with his brother's sandals on the throne.
A ragged brahmin stood at the gates of Dwarka with a little beaten rice in a bundle — and the king came running out barefoot.
Devas and asuras work together to churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality — and the first thing that surfaces is poison.
An old woman waits a lifetime in a forest hermitage for a guest who has not yet been born into her story.
The five-day festival marking the victory of light over darkness — its stories, customs, and meaning.
Folk diety
Folk deity
A demon king sends a marriage proposal to the Goddess. She replies with a condition, and then with an army of goddesses — whom she takes back into herself before the last fight. The final battle of the Durga Saptashati.
A demon who could be killed only by Shiva's son, a child carried by fire and river and raised by six star-mothers — and the goddess who holds him on her lap.
Shiva arrives for his wedding with ghosts and goblins, and the bride's mother faints. The third night honours the bride who stood her ground — a story the devotional tradition reads into a name.
The gods' anger becomes a goddess in the hermitage of the sage Katyayana, and she rides out against Mahishasura. Centuries later, the young women of Braj keep a month-long vow in her name.
A demon from every drop of whose blood another demon springs, and a goddess dark enough to swallow them all. The seventh night is the most terrifying form of the nine — and is called the auspicious one.
Shiva teases Parvati about her dark skin, and she leaves to do austerities until she shines. Placed straight after the darkest night, the eighth is its answer.
A king betrayed by his ministers and a merchant thrown out by his own family meet in a forest and discover they are suffering from the same thing. The question they ask a sage is the frame of the entire Durga Saptashati.
Before there was anything, there was darkness — and then a goddess smiled. The fourth night's story is a creation story built entirely out of a name, and it says so.
When beauty failed to reach Shiva, Parvati went into the forest and did not come back until he came to her. The second night honours the young woman who gave up even leaves.
Sati walks uninvited into her father's sacrifice and gives up her body there. She is born again as the daughter of the Himalaya — and the nine nights begin.
The first chapter of the Durga Saptashati: Vishnu is asleep, two demons are about to kill Brahma, and the only one who can help is the goddess who is Vishnu's sleep.
Before his last battle with Ravana, Rama wakes the Goddess out of season and offers her a hundred and eight lotuses — and when one goes missing, he reaches for his own eye. Why Durga Puja falls in autumn.
At the end of their exile the Pandavas hid their weapons in a shami tree. A year later Arjuna, disguised as a dance teacher, climbed it to take back his bow. Why people still worship the shami on Dussehra.
The last of the nine is the one even Shiva is said to have worshipped — and half of him became her. The ninth night closes the circle that the mountain's daughter opened.