After Mahishasura, the brothers Shumbha and Nishumbha took heaven, and their servants told them of a woman of unmatched beauty upon a mountain. They sent a messenger with an offer of marriage, and the goddess answered with a vow she had made in play: she would marry only the one who defeated her in battle. The messenger warned her that no one had ever stood against his masters. She told him to bring them.

They sent their generals first. Dhumralochana was reduced to ash. Chanda and Munda came with an army, and from the black brow of the enraged goddess sprang Kali, who took their heads and was named Chamunda for it. Raktabija came and was drunk dry. And as the fighting widened, the Shaktis of all the gods came out onto the field as women, each riding her lord’s mount and carrying his weapon, and the goddess fought at the head of them.

Nishumbha fell first. Shumbha, standing alone at last, taunted her: she was only winning because so many women fought beside her. And the goddess drew them all back into herself, every Shakti, until she stood in the field entirely alone, and said, I am alone here. There is no second. And then she killed him.

The Moral

The demon’s taunt earns the greatest line in the text. The many forms, all the goddesses with all their weapons, are drawn back into one and she declares there is no second. It is Advaita spoken in the middle of a battlefield: the many powers we name separately are one power, and the same is true of us. Also note how the war began, with an offer to possess her. What refuses to be owned is what cannot be beaten.

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