The rishi says: this is a tale of very ancient days. Between the gods and the asuras a savage war burned for a full hundred years, Mahishasura, overlord of the asuras, on one side, and Purandara Indra, lord of the gods, on the other. In that struggle the army of heaven broke before the mighty asuras and went down in defeat. And having conquered every god, Mahishasura himself sat down in Indra’s place.

Then the defeated gods placed the lotus-born Prajapati Brahma at their head and went to where Shiva and Vishnu sat. Before the two of them they laid out everything, exactly as it had happened, each move of Mahishasura and the whole measure of their own downfall. They told how that evil-souled one now wielded alone the offices of Surya, Indra, Agni, Vayu, Chandra, Yama, and Varuna, and of every other god besides. Cast out of heaven, the whole company of gods now wandered the earth like ordinary mortals.

Having told all these doings of the enemy of the gods, they folded their hands: we have come to your shelter; now think of some way to slay this Mahishasura. At those words the faces of Madhusudana Vishnu and Shambhu Shiva twisted with anger, and their brows drew taut. Then from the face of the discus-bearing Vishnu, brimming with fierce wrath, and with it from the faces of Brahma and Shankara, a great splendor burst forth. Here anger itself became the cause of creation.

From the bodies of Indra and the other gods too a mighty splendor came forth, and all of it flowed together into one. The gods watched that mass of blazing splendor stand like a mountain on fire, its flames filling every quarter of the sky. Then that matchless splendor, born of the bodies of all the gods, gathered into one place and settled into the figure of a woman whose single form now held the massed strength of every god, and her radiance filled the three worlds.

Now the splendor of each god shaped one part of the goddess. From Shambhu’s splendor her face took form, from Yama’s her thick, flowing hair, and from Vishnu’s her arms. From the Moon’s splendor came her twin breasts, from Indra’s her waist, from Varuna’s her calves and thighs, and from the earth’s splendor her hips. From Brahma’s splendor came her feet, from Surya’s the toes upon them, from the splendor of the Vasus the fingers of her hands, and from Kubera’s splendor her nose.

From Prajapati’s splendor the goddess’s teeth were made, and from Agni’s her three blazing eyes. From the splendor of the two twilights came her brows, from Vayu’s her two ears, and from the splendor of the remaining gods every other limb, and so the wholly auspicious Kalyani stood complete. When the gods so long tormented by Mahisha looked on her, formed from the massed splendor of them all, joy swept through them.

Then, longing for victory, the gods offered the conquering one their weapons, each his own, and raised the cry of triumph high. Shiva, bearer of the Pinaka, drew a trident out of his own trident and gave it, and Krishna spun a fresh discus from his own discus and offered that. Varuna gave a conch, Agni a spear, and Vayu a bow with two quivers packed with arrows.

Thousand-eyed Indra, sovereign of the immortals, struck a thunderbolt from his own vajra and gave it, and from his elephant Airavata a bell. Yama gave a staff drawn from his own staff of death, Varuna a noose, Prajapati a rosary of beads, and Brahma a water pot. Divakara the sun poured his rays into every pore of the goddess’s skin, and Kala offered a sword and a stainless shield.

The ocean of milk gave the goddess a necklace that would never dim, garments that would never wear thin, a divine crest-jewel, earrings, and bracelets. It gave a bright half-moon besides, armlets for every arm, spotless anklets, a peerless collar for her throat, and jeweled rings for every finger, and the goddess stood adorned from crown to foot.

Vishvakarma, craftsman of the gods, gave a battle-axe of flawless polish, weapons of many forms, and armor no blade could pierce. The sea offered the goddess lotus garlands that would never fade, one for her head and one for her breast, and with them a lotus of surpassing beauty. Himavan gave the goddess her mount, a lion, along with jewels of many kinds, and here the lion-mount is given for the first time. And Kubera gave a drinking cup that never runs dry of wine.

Shesha, lord of all serpents, who carries this earth upon his hoods, gave the goddess a serpent-necklace set with a great jewel. Beyond all these, still other gods honored her with ornaments and weapons. Then the goddess, arrayed in every particular, loosed again and again a fearsome roar rolling with wild laughter.

That dreadful roar filled the whole sky, and an echo vast beyond measure rang back. All the worlds shuddered at it, the seas heaved, the earth swayed, and every mountain shook. The gods, brimming with joy, cried victory to the rider of the lion, and the sages, their bodies bowed in devotion, began her praise. And seeing the three worlds so shaken, the asuras, enemies of the gods, mustered their entire army and rose for battle with weapons lifted.

At that roar Mahishasura flared into rage. Ah, what is this, he cried, and rushed toward the sound itself, ringed by the whole host of asuras. Then he saw her: the goddess whose radiance filled the three worlds, under whose tread the earth bowed low, whose crown grazed the sky. The twang of her bowstring convulsed the netherworlds to their depths, and with a thousand arms she stood filling every direction.

Then a great war broke open between the goddess and those haters of the gods, and the quarters of the sky blazed with the weapons and missiles flung from every side. Chikshura, the great asura who served as Mahishasura’s general, and Chamara with other asuras came at the goddess with a fourfold army. A great asura named Udagra fought with sixty thousand chariots, and Mahahanu with a host of ten million.

The great asura Asiloma took the field with fifty million troops, and Vashkala with six million. Ugradarshana, ringed by many thousands of elephants and horses and by ten million chariots, fought hard through that battle. Bidalaksha joined the struggle ringed by five billion chariots, and the asura Kala fought on, ringed by five hundred thousand chariots and as many foot soldiers.

Many more great asuras, each ringed by tens of thousands of chariots, elephants, and horses, threw themselves against the goddess. Mahishasura himself stood fixed at the heart of the field, ringed by chariots, elephants, and horses in the untold thousands of ten million times ten million. The asuras came down on the goddess with tomaras and bhindipalas, with spears and musalas, with swords, axes, and pattishas. Some hurled spears, some cast nooses, and some set out to kill her with strokes of the sword.

And the goddess Chandika cut every weapon and missile of theirs to pieces as if at play, raining down her own weapons and missiles all the while. No strain touched her face; praised by gods and rishis, the Ishvari kept pouring her weapons and missiles onto the bodies of the asuras. And her mount the lion, roused to fury, shook out its mane and moved through the asura armies the way fire moves through a forest.

The breaths Ambika released as she fought became, on the instant, ganas by the hundreds and thousands. Fed by the goddess’s shakti, those ganas set about destroying the asura hosts with axes, bhindipalas, swords, and pattishas. Some ganas beat war drums, some blew conches, others sounded the mridanga, and that dreadful struggle turned into something like a festival of war.

Then the goddess cut down great asuras by the hundreds with trident, mace, showers of spears, sword, and the rest. Some she felled dazed by the tolling of her bell, and others she bound with the noose and dragged across the ground. Some were split in two by keen strokes of the sword, and some, crushed under the falling mace, lay battered on the earth.

Some asuras fell vomiting blood under the battering of the musala, and some collapsed to the ground with spears driven into their chests. Riddled by torrents of arrows, some enemies of the gods gave up their lives on that field, their shaft-filled bodies bristling like thorns. Arms were severed, necks were cut, heads dropped, and some were torn open down the middle.

Great asuras dropped to the earth with their thighs cut away, and some the goddess split down the middle, so that each half was left with a single arm, a single eye, a single foot. Some, their heads already struck off, fell and rose again; headless trunks now, they snatched up their finest weapons and fought the goddess on. Other headless trunks, sword, spear, and rishti in hand, began to dance to the rhythm of the war drums.

Drenched in streams of their own blood, some great asuras still flung their challenge at the goddess, stand, stand, and the struggle rose to a pitch that set the body’s hair on end. Fallen chariots, elephants, horses, and asuras so choked the ground that the field where that great battle raged could no longer be crossed. And among the elephants, the horses, and the asuras, blood ran out in torrents like great rivers.

In one moment Ambika drove that vast asura army to destruction, the way fire devours a huge heap of straw and timber. And the lion, bellowing and shaking its mane, prowled among the asura bodies as if picking the very lives out of them. The gods, well pleased with the war the goddess and her ganas had waged upon the asuras there, rained flowers from heaven. But the chief target, Mahishasura, still lived, and the next story rises from exactly there.