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Upon the boundless waters of the dissolution, in the very center of the sky, the three gods stood with folded hands before the Devi, who was clothed in divine ornaments. A moment earlier Jagadamba had given them their charge: to take up now, without fear, their separate offices of creation, preservation, and destruction, and by their own powers to bring forth the four kinds of beings, the egg-born, the womb-born, the sprout-born, and the sweat-born. Yet Brahma had answered with humility, “O Mother, we are without power. There is as yet no wide earth anywhere, no five elements, no gunas, no tanmatras, no senses. How, then, are we to fashion any beings at all?” At this the face of Bhagavati brightened with a soft smile. In that same instant a jewel-set vimana (a flying chariot) came down out of the sky, hung with fringes of pearl and ringing with the sound of small bells. “O gods,” the Devi said, “seat yourselves upon it and have no fear. Today I will show you a marvel.” With the utterance ॐ, the three climbed onto the vimana free of all doubt, and the Devi, by her power, sent it soaring into the vault of the sky.
Their own likenesses in world after world
Flying with the speed of the mind, the vimana first came to a land where water was not so much as named. There the trees hung heavy with fruit of every kind, cuckoos called from the branches, and a lovely city, ringed by a grand rampart, stood adorned with sacrificial halls and shining palaces. To the three it seemed that this must be heaven itself, and they fell to wondering who could have built so wondrous a city. Just then they saw a king, godlike in form, riding out to the hunt, and they saw as well the Jagadamba seated upon the vimana.
Then the vimana came to a second delightful land, where a Kamadhenu stood in the shade of a Parijata tree, an Airavata with four tusks close by, and apsaras such as Menaka danced. Hundreds of gandharvas, yakshas, and vidyadharas sang in the groves of Mandara, and there Indra sat with his Indrani. Seeing Varuna, Kubera, Yama, Surya, and Agni present in that place, the three were filled with wonder.
Onward the vimana reached the otherworldly Brahmaloka. There, saluted by all the gods, sat yet another Brahma, and in his assembly all the Vedas stood present in bodily form together with their limbs. Seeing this, Vishnu and Shankara asked, “O four-faced one, who is this second, eternal Brahma?” Brahma answered that he himself did not know them. The vimana then climbed to the peak of Kailasa, where another Shankara came forth from his abode, mounted upon a bull, five-faced, ten-armed, a half-moon set upon his brow. The mighty Gajanana and Shadanana were his guards, and the ganas led by Nandi followed behind him, raising cries of victory. From there the vimana passed to the Vaikuntha of Lakshmi’s lord, where another Vishnu appeared, dark as the flax flower, robed in yellow, seated upon Garuda, while Lakshmi fanned him with a chamara. Beholding these eternal images of their own selves, the three were seized by a great astonishment, and they could not fathom whose play this was.
Bhagavati enthroned in the ocean of nectar
After this the vimana came to the shore of the ocean of nectar, its waters sweet, its waves running high. There the groves of Mandara, Parijata, Ashoka, and Champa were loud with the humming of bees. On that island they saw a couch shaped in the form of Shiva, set with garlands of jewels and glowing like a rainbow, and upon it a woman of the heavens was seated. She wore a garland of red flowers and garments of red, her body was anointed with red sandal paste, and her radiance seemed to put to shame tens of millions of lightning bolts and even the disk of the sun. Birds that chanted the seed-mantra ह्रीं were busy in her service, and that youthful maiden, glowing with the color of dawn, was compassion made visible. Companions who murmured the names Hallekha and Bhuvaneshi surrounded her, and she sat at the center of a six-pointed figure upon the king of yantras. Seen from afar, she appeared to have a thousand eyes, a thousand faces, and a thousand hands.
The three could not tell who this beauty was, for she was no apsara, no gandharvi, no goddess of the heavens. Then Lord Vishnu, judging from his own experience, declared, “This is Jagadamba herself, the cause from which all of us come. She is Mahavidya, she is Mahamaya, the whole and everlasting Prakriti, and she can be known by the path of yoga alone. It is this root Prakriti who, with the aid of the Supreme Purusha, shapes the cosmos.” At that very moment the memory of a former birth woke in Brahma. This was the same Mahadevi who, in the ocean of dissolution, had rocked the infant Brahma in the cup of a banyan leaf, when he lay with the toe of his foot in his mouth, at play with all the gestures natural to a child. Singing, she had swung him in that cradle. “Surely she is my mother,” said Brahma. “Today the memory of that earlier experience has awakened in me.”
The three gods turned to women, and the mirror in the toenail
On Vishnu’s counsel the three, bowing again and again, came to the doorway of Bhagavati. Seeing them standing at her door, the Devi smiled softly and changed them into the form of women. Made into beautiful young women adorned with ornaments, they stood before her, gazing at one another, and the Devi turned upon them a look of grace. There, in the mirror formed by the nail of Bhagavati’s lotus foot, Brahma saw a marvel: the whole cosmos of moving and unmoving things, Brahma himself, Vishnu, Shiva, Vayu, Agni, Yama, Surya, Varuna, the moon, Kubera, Indra, the mountains, the oceans, the rivers, gandharvas, apsaras, siddhas, the ancestors, the serpents led by Shesha, and even the lotus of his own birth, all sat within that single nail. Madhu and Kaitabha too were seen there, and the great Vishnu reclining upon Shesha. Within this vast display fashioned by Bhagavati lay countless universes beyond number.
In this way a hundred years passed on that nectar island, as though among dear companions. Once, standing there in the form of a woman, Vishnu began to praise Shri Bhuvaneshwari: “Salutation to the Devi who is Prakriti and the ordainer of all. Again and again, salutation to Bhuvaneshi, whose very form is being, consciousness, and bliss, who performs the five acts. O Mother, today I have understood that this whole universe rests within you. Living beings are your imperishable portions, and it is to grant them moksha that you have made this world. From Madhu and Kaitabha you protected us, and you have shown us your many realms.” After this, Shiva said with humility that the Navarna initiation he had received in a former birth no longer remained in his memory, and he asked the Devi for that mantra once more. Then Bhagavati, in a clear voice, pronounced the nine-syllable mantra ॐ ऐं ह्रीं क्लीं चामुण्डायै विच्चे, and Shiva received it, bowed at her feet, and was filled with gladness. Then Brahma, begging pardon for his pride, prayed that he be told whether the Devi was man or woman, so that, knowing the supreme power, he might be freed from the ocean of worldly life.
The giving of Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, and Mahasaraswati
Asked with such deep humility, the primordial Bhagavati began to speak in sweet words: “I and Parabrahman are forever one. The difference appears only through a confusion of the intellect. As a single lamp appears as two through a difference in its conditions, so at the time of creation this difference comes to be. I am intellect, fortune, fortitude, fame, memory, faith, wisdom, compassion, modesty, forgiveness, radiance, sleep, knowledge, and ignorance. I am the one seated as Gauri, Brahmi, Vaishnavi, Varahi, Narasimhi, and the power of Vasavi. The coolness in water, the heat in fire, the light in the sun, the moonlight in the moon, all of this am I. Without me no living being can so much as stir, and this is why a weak man is called shaktiheena, one without Shakti, and never Vishnu-less or Rudra-less.”
Then Bhagavati said to Brahma, “O Vidhi, accept as your consort this power named Mahasaraswati, filled with the quality of rajas and robed in white. Know her as my splendor and never treat her with scorn. Now go to Satyaloka and, from the seed of the elements, bring forth the fourfold creation. When a hard task comes, Shri Hari will take an avatara upon the earth, and the mighty Shankara too will help you.” To Vishnu she said, “O Vishnu, receive this lovely Mahalakshmi. She will dwell forever upon your breast. Your chief quality is sattva, and this union named Lakshmi-Narayana I myself have made. Chant always the mantra I give you, formed of the seeds Vagbija, Kamaraja, and Mayabija, and by it you will have no fear of death or of Time.” And to Shiva she said, “O Hara, take this charming Mahakali and live at your ease upon the peak of Kailasa. In you the quality of tamas will stay foremost, and with rajas and tamas you will destroy the daityas. Whenever calamity comes, I will grant you my darshan at the mere thought of me.” In this way, giving Mahalakshmi to Vishnu, Mahakali to Shiva, and Mahasaraswati to Brahma, and granting the three her nine-syllable mantra and her promise of remembrance, Jagadamba sent them on their way.
Recalling her wondrous form and her power, the three gods returned to their male shape and seated themselves once more upon that vimana. But now there was no jewel island there, no Mahamaya, and no ocean of nectar. Nothing at all could be seen except the vimana itself. Seated upon that great chariot, they came again near the lotus in the vast ocean where Lord Vishnu had slain the fierce daityas named Madhu and Kaitabha, and from that very place the creation of the three gunas took its auspicious beginning.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)