Mahishasura
Bovine asura slain by the goddess Durga
- 6 min read
- 5 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Hinduism, Venkateswara and South Asia
The Navaratri ("Nine Nights") festival eulogises this battle between Mahishasura and Durga, culminating in Vijayadashami, a celebration of his ultimate defeat. This story of the "triumph of good over evil" carries profound symbolism in Hinduism, particularly Shaktism, and is both narrated as well as reenacted from the Devi Mahatmya at many South and Southeast Asian Hindu temples.
The Mahishasura Mardini Stotra by Adi Shankara was written to commemorate her legend.
Legend
Mahishasura is a Sanskrit word composed of mahisha meaning "buffalo" and asura, referring to a class of power-seeking beings in Hindu cosmology. While often loosely translated as "buffalo demon", asuras are fundamentally rivals to the devas rather than embodiments of pure evil. As an asura, Mahishasura waged war against the devas, as the devas and asuras were perpetually in conflict. Mahishasura had gained the boon that no man could kill him. In the battles between the devas and the demons (asuras), the devas, led by Indra, were defeated by Mahishasura. Subjected to defeat, the devas assembled in the mountains where their combined divine energies coalesced into the goddess Durga. The newborn Durga led a battle against Mahishasura, riding a lion, and killed him. Thereafter, she was named Mahishasuramardini, meaning The Killer of Mahishasura. According to the Lakshmi Tantra and Narada Purana, it is the goddess Lakshmi who slays Mahishasura instantaneously, and extolling her feat is described to offer everlasting supremacy. Meanwhile, the Garuda Purana (2.2.67-68) also mentions that the consort of Venkateswara, had killed Mahishasura.
Mahishasura's legend is told in the major texts of the Shaktism traditions known as the Devi Mahatmya, which is part of Markandeya Purana. The story of Mahishasura is told in the chapter where Markandeya is narrating the story of the birth of Savarnika Manu. Per the Markandeya Purana, the story of Mahishasura was narrated in the second Manvantara (approximately 1.3 billion years ago, as per the Vishnu Purana) by Maharishi Medha to a king named Suratha. Mahishasura is described as an evil being who can change his outer form, but never his demonic goals. According to Christopher Fuller, Mahishasura represents the forces of ignorance and chaos hidden by outer appearances. The symbolism is carried in Hindu art found in South Asia and South-East Asia (e.g., Javanese art), where Durga is shown as a serene, calm, collected and graceful symbol of good as she pierces the heart and kills the scared, overwhelmed and outwitted Mahishasura.
Sign in to keep reading
4 more chapters are free with a Lably account.
Variations
Scholars generally treat the Devi Mahatmya as the standard telling of Durga’s slaying of Mahishasura, while noting that later texts and regions preserve additional versions. Across the Puranas, retellings vary in narrative detail and emphasis, reflecting the fluidity of the corpus and how episodes are adapted in different redactions and local traditions. Texts also differ in the name and form of the goddess who defeats Mahishasura. Some sources foreground Mahalakshmi, others Katyayani or Bhadrakali; the identification depends on the text and sectarian context. Indological surveys note that Purana compilers sometimes re-situate myths within different cosmic cycles. As a result, the setting and supporting details of the battle can shift from one source to another. Modern scholarship commonly reads the episode as a theological statement about the manifestation of the goddess’s shakti, rather than as a single fixed event across all texts; emphasis falls on divine power, cosmic order, and protection of the gods and world.
Art
Durga slaying Mahishasura is a prominent theme which was sculpted in various caves and temples across India. Some of the prominent representations are seen at the Mahishasuramardini caves in Mahabalipuram, the Ellora Caves, in the entrance of Rani ki vav, Hoysaleswara Temple in Halebidu and many more temples across India. The worship of Durga during Durga Puja in Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha and other eastern states is represented in Pandal which depict Durga killing Mahishasura. The legend of Mahishasura has also been inspiration for films, plays and dance dramas.
Etymology of Mysore
The popular legend is that Mysore (Mahishooru) gets its name from Mahishasuramardini, a manifestation of goddess Durga. The buffalo demon Mahishasura, states the regional tradition, had terrified the local population. It is believed that goddess Durga (Chamundeshwari) killed Mahishasura on top of the Chamundi Hills. The spot was constructed as the Chamundeshwari Temple in Mysuru city, an event that is annually celebrated at Navaratri and Mysuru Dasara. The British Era in India saw the name change to "Mysore" and later Kannadized back into "Mysuru".
The temple of the city's guardian deity, Chamundeshvari, has a giant statue of Mahishasura on the hill facing the city. The earliest mention of Mysore in recorded history may be traced to 245 B.C., i.e., to the period of Ashoka when on the conclusion of the third Buddhist convocation, a team was dispatched to Mahisha Mandala.
Asur tribe's narrative
Asurs believe that the Mahishasura was their benevolent ancestor, and mourn during the Durga Puja period for what they see as the unjust butchering of their ancestor. The veneration of Mahishasura has spread throughout the Munda tribes of West Bengal as well as Namasudras.
The Kherwal Santal people and the Kolarian Dravidian Asura tribe community worship Mahishasura, whom they call Hudur Durga, as their deity. In contrast, they consider Durga to be the villain. The word hudur means lightning and the word Durga means protector. The combined meaning of the word is lightning-hard guard.
According to the Kherwal Santal and Asura tribes of Jharkhand, India, Hudur Durga was their millennial ancestor, the king of a village called Chaichampa. After the Aryans came to India, they realizing that they were unable to defeat Hudur Durga, so they began to think of various ways to kill him. They found out that he was very feminine and that women were highly regarded in their society, so they sent a beautiful woman of fair complexion as a spy to assassinate him.
The Aryans proposed marriage to the king. Impressed by the woman's appearance, the king agreed to marry her and was killed by her seven days after they got married. Upon hearing the news of the king's death, the Aryans invaded the kingdom in order to seize it. On the advice of their guru, the men of the kingdom bathed in the river Saraswati, disguised as women, and fled the kingdom to perform the Dasai dance.
The Santals claim that the Aryans reidentified the woman as Durga and the king as Mahishasura in their scriptures, and that the name of their king, Hudur Durga, was incorrectly mentioned to be the name of the woman. During Durga Puja, they do not worship Durga but worship Mahishasura and mourn the women by dancing Dasai on the way.
According to many claims, due to the fact that the woman was a courtesan, Hindus use cow urine, Ganges water, cowdung along with the soil of brothels (four G: Gomutra, Gobar, Gangajal or Ganikalaya (brothel)'s soil) to make idols of Durga in Durga Puja. The Asur tribe also counts Hudur Durga as well as their ancestors as the decendants of Ravana of Lanka.