Devi Mahatmya

Devi Mahatmya, Sanskrit text, written about the 5th or 6th century ce, that forms a portion of a larger work known as the Markandeya-purana. It is the first such text that revolves entirely around the figure of the Goddess (Devi) as the primary deity.

While goddesses were worshiped in India before this period, the Devi Mahatmya is significant in that it is the earliest appearance in the high Sanskritic literary and religious tradition of a treatise in which the Goddess is elevated to a place of ultimate prominence. The work has been passed down as a self-contained text that is memorized and recited, word for word, as part of the religious practice of those Hindus who worship Devi as the highest divinity.

The Devi Mahatmya is also significant in that it regards various forms of the Goddess—ranging from the fearsome and dangerous Kali to the benign and gentle Shri—as fundamentally unified. The Goddess appears in the work most frequently as the fierce and violent Chandi (or Chandika) and as Ambika (“Mother”), a maternal figure. The Devi Mahatmya is chiefly concerned with the salvific actions of the Goddess, who is depicted as defeating a demon army with the aid of the Saptamatrika (“Seven Mothers”) and, in the form of Durga, as slaying the great buffalo-demon Mahisasura. Durga is described as having many arms, each of which wields a weapon, and riding a fierce lion.