Navaratri Night 2 — Brahmacharini, the Austerity That Moved Shiva
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.
The second night honours Brahmacharini — "she who walks in brahman", the Goddess as a young ascetic. She is shown on foot, barefoot, in plain white, a rosary in her right hand and a water-pot in her left. No weapon, no mount. Of all the nine she is the simplest to look at, and her story is one of the oldest.
Why she went into the forest
The gods had a problem. A demon named Taraka had won a boon that only a son of Shiva could kill him — and Shiva, grieving Sati, had withdrawn into meditation on a Himalayan peak and wanted nothing to do with marriage.
Parvati, now grown, went with her father's blessing to serve the meditating god. The gods sent [Kama](/gods/kamadeva), the god of desire, to help. Kama loosed his flower-arrow at the moment Parvati stood before Shiva — and Shiva, feeling his stillness disturbed, opened his third eye and burned Kama to ash where he stood. Then he left.
Parvati was left standing in the ruins with her flowers. Kalidasa, who tells this in the Kumarasambhava, has her draw the obvious conclusion: beauty had not been enough. If she wanted Shiva, she would have to meet him on his own ground.
The austerity
So she put away her ornaments, put on bark, and went into the forest to do tapas. Her mother Mena tried to stop her — u mā, "oh, don't" — and Kalidasa says that is how she came to be called Uma.
She did not stop. In summer she sat between four fires under the sun. In winter she stood in icy water through the night. She ate only what fell from the trees, and then she gave up even that, and lived on nothing. For that last renunciation she was called Aparna — "she who did not take even a leaf".
The visitor
One day a young ascetic with matted hair came to her hermitage. He was courteous, and then he was curious. Why would a princess like her torture herself for Shiva, of all gods? A man with no family, dressed in a snakeskin and an elephant hide, who lives among the dead and rides an old bull?
Parvati answered every insult in turn, and then she stood up to go. "He who listens to evil spoken of the great," she said, "shares in the sin of the one who speaks it."
As she turned, the ascetic took her hand. It was Shiva. In Kalidasa's line: from today, you whose body is bowed by austerity, I am your servant, bought by your tapas.
What is old here
This story is among the best attested in the whole set: the burning of Kama and Parvati's austerities are told in Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava (fifth century or earlier) and throughout the Shiva Purana. The name Brahmacharini for this form, and its place as the second night, comes from the Devi Kavacha.
To carry from the second night: Parvati did not win by being admired. She won by becoming someone who could not be refused — and the person she had to convince first was herself.
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Related teachings
Navaratri Night 1 — Shailaputri, Daughter of the Mountain
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.
Navaratri Night 3 — Chandraghanta, the Bell and the Wedding
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.
Navaratri Night 5 — Skandamata, Mother of the War God
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.
Navaratri Night 8 — Mahagauri, the Dark Goddess Made Bright
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.
Navaratri Night 4 — Kushmanda, the Smile That Lit the Dark
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.
Navaratri Night 6 — Katyayani, Born in a Sage's Hermitage
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.