Navarātri begins

The demon no man or god could kill

Retold from the Devī Māhātmya (the Durgā Saptaśatī*), set within the* Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. The English translation relied on here is that of F.E. Pargiter and the standard Gita Press rendering.

The buffalo-demon Mahiṣāsura had won, by long austerity, a boon that no man and no god could kill him — and on the strength of it he drove the gods out of heaven and took it for himself. The defeated gods went to Viṣṇu and Śiva, and out of the gathered wrath of all of them a light poured forth — from Śiva her face, from Viṣṇu her arms, from the others her every limb — and the light took form as a woman, Durgā, more radiant and more terrible than any of them alone. Each god gave her his weapon: Śiva's trident, Viṣṇu's discus, Indra's thunderbolt, and the rest. She had no place in the demon's careful boon. He had warded himself against men and gods, and forgotten the Goddess.

The war is the heart of the Devī Māhātmya, fought over nine nights — Navarātri. She destroys the demon generals one after another — Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, from whom she takes the name Cāmuṇḍā; Raktabīja, every drop of whose blood became a new demon, until she drank the blood before it could fall. And at last she meets Mahiṣāsura himself, who shifts shape — buffalo, lion, man, back to buffalo — and on the tenth day she pins him and strikes off his head. Heaven is restored.

The nine nights are traditionally read as the Goddess in three movements of three: first as Durgā/Kālī, destroying what is corrupt; then as Lakṣmī, establishing what is good; then as Sarasvatī, the wisdom that crowns it. The work is not only war but the whole arc — clearing, settling, illumining.

What is done, and why

Navarātri opens with Ghaṭasthāpana — the installing of a pot, often sown with barley, as the seat of the Goddess for the nine nights. The days are kept with fasting (many take only fruit and a single sattvic meal), recitation of the Durgā Saptaśatī, and in much of the country garba and dāṇḍiyā danced through the night around the lamp. The barley sprouts over the nine days — the visible answer to the worship.

How it is kept

Navarātri begins on Āśvina Śukla Pratipadā with Ghaṭasthāpana, and runs nine nights to the ninth (Mahānavamī); the tenth day is Vijayadaśamī.

Why it is kept

The festival rests on the gap in Mahiṣāsura's boon. He sealed himself against men and gods and never thought of the Goddess — and it is precisely the power he discounted that ends him. Navarātri is nine nights of honouring that power: the śakti that the careful and the proud forget, and that is, in the end, the one that wins.

Source: Devī Māhātmya (Durgā Saptaśatī), within the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa — the slaying of Mahiṣāsura over the nine nights. Available at wisdomlib.org.