She rides a lion. She has many arms, each holding a weapon given to her by a different god. She is beautiful and she is terrifying at once, and she is smiling even as she drives a trident into the chest of a buffalo demon. This is Durga, and her image is one of the most powerful in all of Sanatan dharma. ## Why she was made Durga's great story is told in the Devi Mahatmya. A buffalo demon, Mahishasura, had won a boon that no man and no god could kill him. Secure in it, he conquered the heavens and drove out the devas. The gods, defeated and helpless, did the only thing they could. They poured their energies together, and from that combined light a woman took form. Each god gave her a weapon: Shiva his trident, Vishnu his discus, Indra his thunderbolt, and so on. The mountains gave her a lion to ride. She was not born of any one of them. She was the gathered power of all of them, Shakti made visible, and she was greater than any. Because the boon had named men and gods but not a woman, Mahishasura had left a door open, and Durga walked through it. After a long battle she slew him, and the heavens were restored. She is called Mahishasuramardini, the slayer of Mahishasura, and that is the form most often shown. ## What she means Read the story closely and you see it is not only about a demon. Mahisha, the buffalo, stands for the brute force of ego and ignorance, the part of us that cannot be reasoned with and will not yield to the ordinary gods of the mind. Durga is the power that rises when nothing gentler will do. She teaches that the divine feminine is not soft by default. Shakti is the active energy of the universe, and when dharma is threatened, that energy takes a form that fights. Her many arms say that she can meet trouble on every side at once. Her calm face above the battle says that she is never overwhelmed by it. ## The mother behind the warrior Yet Durga is also Maa, the mother, and her devotees come to her as children. The same Goddess who destroys Mahishasura is the one who is welcomed home each autumn in Bengal as a daughter visiting her parents, and sent off with tears at the end of Durga Puja. This doubleness is the whole of her. She is fierce toward what harms her children and tender toward the children themselves. To worship Durga is to trust that the power that protects you is greater than the thing that threatens you. ## How she is approached Durga is worshipped above all during the two Navratris, autumn and spring, and in the east during Durga Puja. Her simplest invocation is the mantra Om Dum Durgayei Namah. The Devi Mahatmya, or Durga Saptashati, is recited in her honour, especially during Navratri. She does not ask her devotees to be fearless on their own. She asks them to hand the fear to her. The image says it plainly: whatever the demon, the Mother is already smiling, and already winning. ## Related reading - [Sharad Navratri: Nine Nights, Nine Forms of Shakti](/sanatan-katha/sharad-navratri-nine-forms) - [Dussehra: The Victory of Ram over Ravana](/sanatan-katha/dussehra-vijayadashami) - [Meenakshi Amman Temple: The Fish-Eyed Goddess](/sanatan-katha/meenakshi-temple-madurai)