Mahishasura had fallen. That most valiant, evil-souled asura lay slain, and with him the whole army of the gods’ enemies, all of it brought down by the Devi. So the gods rose to sing, Indra at their head. Joy ran through them until the hair lifted on their arms, and that thrill made their very bodies beautiful. They bent head and neck and shoulder low before her, and out of that reverence their voices rose into praise.

The gods said: We bow in faith to Ambika, who spread out this entire world by her own power and who stands as the massed might of every divine host gathered into a single form. All the gods and the great rishis worship her. May she ordain what is good for us. Her matchless majesty and strength not even Ananta the adorable, not Brahma, not Shiva can find words to declare. May that Chandika bend her mind to guarding the whole world and to destroying the fear of every evil thing. She is Shri, good fortune herself, in the houses of those who do good, and Alakshmi, misfortune, in the houses of the wicked; she is the intelligence in discerning hearts, the faith in the good, the modesty in the high-born. To you, who are all of this, we bow. Protect this universe, O Devi.

Still bowed low, the gods went on. What words can hold this form of yours that no thought can reach, or that boundless valor of yours that destroys the asuras, or the wonders you worked in battle before the massed hosts of gods and asuras alike? You are the cause of all the worlds. The three gunas, the qualities woven through all nature, run through you too, and still no flaw of theirs can touch you or mark you as its own; even Vishnu, Shiva, and the other gods cannot fathom you. You are the ground on which everything rests, and this whole universe is a single portion of you, for you are the unmanifest, the supreme and primal prakriti, the first cause of all.

You are Svaha, O Devi, and at the utterance of your name the whole host of gods takes its fill in every yajna, the fire-rite. Through you the ancestors too are satisfied, and so people also call you Svadha, the word that feeds the ancestors. You are the cause of final release, holding a great vow no mind can grasp; sages who long for moksha reach you through practice, their senses reined in, their being fixed on the essence of the tattvas, the true principles of things, every fault burned away, for you are that supreme and blessed Vidya, the knowledge that sets them free. Sound itself is your body. You are the treasury of the flawless verses of the Rig and the Yajur, and of the Samans whose chanting the Udgitha makes lovely. You are the goddess Trayi, the three Vedas in one; and for the being and the welfare of the world you are Varta, the livelihood by which all creatures live, and the remover of their deepest pain.

You are Medha, the mind’s own power, O Devi, who has drawn into herself the essence of every shastra. You are Durga, the boat that ferries souls across this ocean of existence so hard to cross, herself bound to nothing. You are Shri, who has made her one dwelling in the heart of Vishnu, the slayer of Kaitabha. You are Gauri, whose seat is fixed beside Shiva, the god who wears the moon. Think of your face: faintly smiling, spotless, a match for the full moon’s disc, warm with the sheen of the finest gold, a wonder past telling. Mahishasura looked straight at it and, in a blind rush of fury, struck. Stranger still, O Devi, that when he saw that same face turn wrathful, terrible under its knotted brows, glowing like the moon at its rising, Mahisha did not yield up his life at once. For who looks on Death in his anger and lives?

Be gracious, O Devi. You are the highest, and you are here for the good of all. Roused to anger, you bring whole clans to nothing in a single moment, and we learned it in this very hour, watching the vast strength of Mahishasura brought down to its setting before you. Those you look on with favor stand honored among their people; wealth is theirs, and glory, and their store of dharma never thins. Happy indeed are the ones whose children and servants and wives live free of trouble, for you, the giver of every rising fortune, keep your pleasure on them. By your grace the man of good deeds performs each rightful act with care, day after day, and passes at the last to heaven. Who else but you, O Devi, gives the fruit of it across all three worlds?

Now came the verse that people still speak in every hour of danger. O Durga, when you are remembered you take away the fear of every living thing; remembered by those at peace in themselves, you give a mind turned toward the highest good. Dispeller of poverty and sorrow and fear, who is there but you whose heart stays soft with the wish to help all? The world comes to happiness once these asuras are slain, and though the sins they piled up might have held them in hell for ages, you reason that if they meet death in battle they will rise to heaven instead, and with that thought you strike your enemies down. Why not burn every asura to ash with a single glance, why send weapons against them at all? For one reason only: that even your foes, made clean by the touch of your weapon in death, may reach the higher worlds. So kind is the intention you keep even toward those who hate you.

The savage glare off your sword and the pouring light from your spear-point never dissolved the asuras’ eyes, and the reason was this: in that same moment they were gazing on your face, bright as a moon-fragment shedding rays. Your very nature, O Devi, is to still the ways of the wicked; this form of yours is past all thought and has no equal anywhere; your valor destroys even those who had robbed the gods of their strength; and so, even upon your enemies, your mercy shows itself. To what shall we liken this valor of yours, and where is there another form that strikes terror into foes and steals the heart? Mercy in the mind and hardness in battle, O giver of boons, in all three worlds these two are found together in you alone.

O Devi, by destroying its enemies you have saved this whole triple world, and those same enemies, cut down at the front of the battle, you have sent up to heaven. The fear the frenzied god-haters had planted in us is gone. We bow to you. Then the gods wound their prayer around the four directions like armor. Guard us with your spear, O Devi. Guard us with your sword, O Ambika. Guard us with the clang of your bell and the deep note of your bowstring. Watch over us in the east, O Chandika, and in the west, and in the south; and in the north, O Ishvari, guard us with the wheeling sweep of your spear.

Whatever gentle forms of yours move through the three worlds, and whatever forms of sheer terror, with all of them keep us safe, and keep this earth safe. Whatever weapons rest in your soft hands, O Ambika, the sword, the spear, the mace, and the rest, with all of them guard us on every side. So the gods worshipped her, the Devi who upholds the worlds, with divine flowers that had opened in the grove of Nandana, and with perfumes and fragrant unguents.

Then all the gods censed her with heavenly incense, their devotion in every breath of it, and the Devi, her face gentle with favor, spoke to the whole bowed company. The Devi said: O dwellers of heaven, you have honored us well with these hymns, and we are greatly pleased. Choose. Whatever you desire, we grant it gladly. Nothing is left that we would count too hard to do. Hearing these words of the Devi, the gods gave their answer.

The gods said: You, the Blessed One, have done it all; nothing at all remains, for Mahishasura our enemy lies slain. Yet if you would give us a boon, O Maheshvari, give us this alone: that whenever we call you to mind, you put an end to our worst calamities. And you whose face is without stain, toward any mortal who praises you with these same hymns, stay always gracious, O Ambika, and make his wealth and prosperity and splendor grow, with the good fortune of wife and home.

The rishi said: So the gods won her favor, O king, praying both for the sake of the world and for their own, and Bhadrakali answered, So be it, and vanished where she stood. This much I have told you, O lord of the earth: how the Devi who wills the good of all three worlds first came into being long ago out of the bodies of the gods. What comes next is how that same Devi took birth again from the body of Gauri, to slay the wicked daityas Shumbha and Nishumbha and to guard the worlds as the helper of the gods. That story too I will now tell you, just as it happened. Listen.