Femi-Nine Nights of Energy

At the centre of the celebrations is the Goddess Durga. Created by the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Durga is endowed with each of their strengths, making her more than and stronger than each one of them. Armed with their weapons and infused with the collective power of divinity, she was birthed to wipe evil off the Earth. Some parts of South India, believe that the Gods reduced themselves to dolls and gave their power to the ‘Devi’ or Goddess to help her in her mission. A mythological belief perhaps that started the practice of keeping Golus or doll-pyramids at home to symbolically safeguard the Gods through those fateful nine days. A practice that has today grown to acquire huge religious, social and cultural proportions in the South.

What necessitated and triggered the creation of one both so beautiful and powerful? It is said that Mahishasura, the son of Rambha, a powerful Asura and Mahishi, a buffalo princess spent several years praying to Brahma. Unable to turn down a devotee, Brahma offers him a boon. Mahishasura asks to be immortal. Brahma explains to him that everything that is born must die. A universal law which even the Gods cannot change! So Mahishasura asks for the next best thing, “Let not any God or man be able to kill me,” Thus, Brahma grants him his wish leaving him vulnerable only to death by female hands. Mahishasura does not believe that any feminine energy can be so powerful as to vanquish him and feeling invincible, he wreaks havoc in the world, till all creatures and the Gods themselves are forced to find a way out.

So it was that Durga was formed and sent to fight the Asura. Legends sing of how the battle raged for nine days with the Goddess Durga adorning a new form everyday and systematically destroying first the armies of the half-buffalo, half-asura forcing him onto the battle field. Using special powers, he too changes from one creature to another to deceive her, but finally is overpowered and killed by the mighty Goddess on the 10th day, celebrated as Vijayadashami. Literally meaning, the victorious 10th day.

Stories of Indian mythology, are rich in lessons. For one, when you want something and immerse yourself into acquiring it, the Gods must grant you your wish. Then, there is the realization that all creation operates on spectrums. Any beginning will have an end. The existence of Devas or the demi-gods, can only happen if there is a counter balance to them. The Asuras play that role. We discover that the creation of something so extremely magnificent as Mother Durga could not have come but from taking the concept of evil to the absolute other end. What’s striking is that the story is as much a story about the victory of Good over Evil as it is about acknowledging the place that ‘Evil’ has as a contrast to the ‘Good’ in the world. Only by stretching evil to extremes is one able to celebrate the intensity of the other end!