Durga and Mahishasura
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.
This is the middle battle of the Durga Saptashati — chapters two to four — and the image at the heart of Navaratri: the Goddess on her lion, spear driven into the buffalo demon. It is honoured as the episode of Mahalakshmi.
A hundred years of war
Long ago, the gods and the asuras fought for a hundred years. The asuras were led by [Mahishasura](/gods/mahishasura), the buffalo demon; the gods by [Indra](/gods/indra). The gods lost. Mahishasura drove them out of heaven, sat on Indra's throne, and took over the duties of the sun, the moon, the wind, fire and death. The gods wandered the earth like ordinary mortals.
Later tellings — the Devi Bhagavata Purana among them — add the detail many people know: that Mahisha had won a boon that no man could kill him, and asked to die only by a woman, because he could not imagine a woman ever being a threat. The Saptashati itself does not need the boon. It simply shows that the gods could not do it.
The goddess made of anger
The defeated gods went to Brahma, [Shiva](/gods/shiva) and [Vishnu](/gods/vishnu) and told them everything. As they listened, Vishnu and Shiva grew so angry that a great light blazed out of their faces. Light poured out of Brahma, then out of Indra, then out of every god — and all of it came together into one blazing mass, like a mountain on fire, filling every direction.
That light became a woman. Shiva's light formed her face; Yama's, her hair; Vishnu's, her arms; the moon's, her breasts; Indra's, her waist; Varuna's, her legs; the earth's, her hips; Brahma's, her feet; the sun's, her toes. Every part of her was some god's power.
Then they armed her. Shiva drew a trident out of his own trident and gave it to her. Vishnu gave her a discus from his discus. Varuna gave a conch and a noose; Agni a spear; Vayu a bow and two quivers of arrows; Indra a thunderbolt and a bell from his elephant's neck. Yama gave his staff of death, Brahma a rosary and water-pot. The sun filled the pores of her skin with his rays. Time gave her a sword and shield. The ocean gave her a necklace and garments that would never wear out. Vishvakarma gave her an axe and armour. The Himalaya gave her a lion to ride. Kubera gave her a cup of wine that is never empty, and Shesha, king of serpents, a necklace of snakes.
She laughed, loudly and again and again, and the sky shook. The gods cried victory!
The battle
Mahishasura heard the noise and came with his army. His generals fell one by one — Chikshura, Chamara, Udagra, Mahahanu, Asiloma, Baskala and many more — cut down by her weapons and by her lion. The breath she let out in battle became hundreds of thousands of new soldiers fighting at her side.
Then Mahishasura himself came, in his buffalo form. He gored her troops, tore up the earth with his hooves, and lashed the oceans with his tail until they flooded. The Goddess threw her noose over him — and he became a lion. She cut off the lion's head — and he was a man with a sword. She struck down the man — and he was an elephant, dragging her lion with his trunk. She cut off the trunk — and he was a buffalo again, flinging mountains at her with his horns.
The Goddess drank from Kubera's cup and laughed, her eyes turning red. "Roar, you fool, roar for a moment while I drink this. When I have killed you, it will be the gods who roar."
She leapt onto him, pinned his neck under her foot, and struck him with her spear. Half-way out of his own buffalo mouth he came, trying to escape in his true form — and she cut off his head with her great sword.
The hymn
The gods, delivered, praised her in the hymn that closes the fourth chapter, and asked her one thing: that whenever they were in trouble again and thought of her, she would come. She promised, and vanished.
That promise is why the story is recited at all. The Mahishasuramardini — "she who crushes Mahishasura" — is the form you see in every Durga Puja pandal in Bengal. In Kolkata, the radio broadcast of Mahishasuramardini before dawn on Mahalaya has opened the festival for generations.
What the buffalo is
Mahisha keeps changing shape — buffalo, lion, man, elephant, buffalo. Every time he is beaten, he becomes something else. That is the nature of the thing she is fighting: pride does not stay in one form. What finally ends him is not one more weapon but the moment the demon himself is caught half-way, between what he pretends to be and what he is.
To carry from this story: Not one god could do this alone. Every one of them gave what they had, and all of it together became something none of them could have been.
See also: [Night 6 — Katyayani](/learn/all/navaratri-night-6-katyayani), the goddess of this battle among the Navadurga, and the reference entry for [Durga](/gods/durga).
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