Mahishasura had won a boon that no man and no god could kill him, and with it he had taken heaven itself. The devas, driven out and homeless, came to Vishnu and Shiva and told their defeat, and as they spoke a great anger rose out of the assembled gods, not as a weapon but as light, pouring from the face of each of them.

That light gathered into one blazing form, and where it settled a woman stood, more beautiful and more terrible than anything the three worlds had held. Each god gave her what was his: Shiva his trident, Vishnu his discus, Indra his thunderbolt, Varuna his conch, Surya his rays, Himavan the lion she would ride. She stood with her many arms full of the weapons of every power in existence, and she laughed, and the mountains shook.

She was born of the gods but she was not their servant; she was Shakti, the power without which none of them could act at all. The devas who had been defeated stood back and watched the battle they could not fight, and it was she who went out to meet the demon.

The Moral

The gods do not defeat Mahishasura by trying harder. They are defeated, and they surrender what they have, and out of that surrendered power something greater than all of them stands up. It is a picture of the moment when personal strength has failed and something deeper is called upon, and it comes not from outside but from what was already ours, gathered and given form. She carries every god’s weapon because she is every god’s power.

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