Every Navaratri, in temples and homes across India, one book is opened more often than any other. In Bengal it is called the Chandi, in the north the Durga Saptashati, and in the Telugu lands simply the Devi Mahatmyam – "the glory of the Goddess". Its seven hundred verses are recited at dawn in the puja room, chanted by priests during Chandi homams, and heard by devotees who may never have read a page of it themselves. This is the story of that text: where it comes from, what it tells, and why it has stayed at the heart of the Goddess's worship for some fifteen centuries.
The Devi Mahatmya is not a separate book in origin. It forms chapters 81 to 93 of the Markandeya Purana, and it is made up of 700 verses arranged in thirteen chapters – hence its other name, Saptashati, "the seven hundred". Scholars generally date its composition to between 400 and 600 CE; the historian of religion Thomas Coburn places it around the middle of the sixth century. It is often described as the text in which the many local and Vedic strands of Goddess worship were first brought together into a single vision of the Divine Mother as the supreme power behind the universe.
The Devi Mahatmya opens not with gods and demons but with two ordinary, unhappy men. Suratha, a king who has lost his kingdom to enemies and his treasury to his own ministers, wanders into the forest. There he meets Samadhi, a merchant whose wife and sons have driven him out for his wealth. Both are puzzled by the same thing: why, after being so wronged, do they still worry about the people and possessions they have lost?
They put the question to the sage Medhas in his hermitage. His answer is that this attachment is the work of Mahamaya, the great power of the Goddess, who both binds beings to the world and, when she is pleased, releases them. The king asks who this Goddess is, and the sage answers with three stories.
At the end of an age, when all the worlds lie under water, Lord Vishnu sleeps on the serpent Shesha. From the dirt of his ears arise two demons, Madhu and Kaitabha, who set out to kill Brahma, seated on the lotus from Vishnu's navel. Brahma sings a hymn to the Goddess as Yoganidra, the sleep that holds Vishnu. Pleased, she withdraws from Vishnu's eyes, and he wakes to fight and slay the demons. The first chapter is short, but its message is large: even the preserver of the universe acts only when the Goddess allows.
The best-known episode, told in chapters two to four, is the one celebrated at Navaratri. The buffalo-demon Mahishasura has defeated the gods and taken Indra's throne. In their anger, a great radiance pours from Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma and all the gods, and gathers into the form of the Goddess. Each god gives her a weapon: the trident, the discus, the conch, the thunderbolt. Mounted on her lion, she destroys Mahishasura's armies and finally the demon himself, who changes shape again and again as buffalo, lion, man and elephant before he falls. The gods praise her in the hymn known as the Shakradi Stuti. She promises that she will return whenever they remember her in distress.
The full account of the Goddess as Mahishasuramardini – her weapons, her names and her temples – is on our page on Goddess Durga Matha.
The longest section, chapters five to thirteen, begins when two new demon brothers, Shumbha and Nishumbha, seize the heavens. The gods go to the Himalaya and sing the hymn that has become the most widely known passage of the whole text:
या देवी सर्वभूतेषु शक्तिरूपेण संस्थिता ।
नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः ॥యా దేవీ సర్వభూతేషు శక్తిరూపేణ సంస్థితా ।
నమస్తస్యై నమస్తస్యై నమస్తస్యై నమో నమః ॥yā devī sarvabhūteṣu śaktirūpeṇa saṃsthitā | namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo namaḥ ||
"To the Goddess who dwells in all beings in the form of power – salutations to her, salutations to her, salutations to her, again and again."
— Devi Mahatmya, Chapter 5
The hymn repeats this pattern many times, naming the Goddess as consciousness, intellect, sleep, hunger, forgiveness, peace, faith, beauty, compassion and mother in all beings.
From the body of Parvati comes forth the radiant Ambika. Shumbha, hearing of her beauty, sends messengers to demand her in marriage. She replies that she has vowed to marry only one who defeats her in battle. The battles that follow are among the most vivid in Puranic literature. From the Goddess's furious brow springs the dark Kali, who slays the generals Chanda and Munda and is named Chamunda. The demon Raktabija, from every drop of whose blood a new demon arises, is destroyed when Kali drinks his blood before it touches the ground. Nishumbha falls, and at last Shumbha. When he mocks her for relying on others, she draws all her powers back into herself and fights him alone, declaring, "I alone exist here in the world; who else is there besides me?"
The gods then sing the Narayani Stuti of chapter eleven, which praises the Goddess as creator, preserver and destroyer. The verse that so many families recite after their daily puja, "Sarva mangala mangalye", comes from this hymn; you will find it in our guide to Navaratri kalasha sthapana at home. Another of its verses is on our Varahi Narayani Stuti page.
The text returns to the forest. Having heard the sage, Suratha and Samadhi worship the Goddess on a riverbank for three years. When she appears to them, the king asks for his kingdom back, and she grants it, promising too that in a future birth he will become the Manu Savarni. The merchant, now free of his old attachments, asks only for the knowledge that ends bondage, and that too is granted. The same Goddess gives each seeker what he truly seeks.
Recitation of the Devi Mahatmya, called Chandi Path or Saptashati parayanam, is one of the central practices of Navaratri. In the recitation tradition the three stories are associated with three aspects of the Goddess: Mahakali with the first, Mahalakshmi with the second and Mahasaraswati with the third. The main text is usually preceded by shorter hymns that are not part of the Purana itself – the Devi Kavacham, Argala Stotram and Kilakam – and sometimes by the Vedic Ratri Sukta. The nine forms of Durga worshipped during Navaratri are named in the Devi Kavacham.
Families follow many patterns. Some read the whole text on a single day, others spread its thirteen chapters across the nine nights, and others recite only the hymns. In the great temples it is chanted as part of Chandi homams and yagams – at Srisailam, for example, the Dasara Mahotsavams include a Chandi yagam. Formal parayanam follows rules of purity and pronunciation that are best learned from a teacher or family priest. For those who cannot read the Sanskrit, listening with devotion or reading a good translation is a long-honoured way of taking part.
The Devi Mahatmya can be read on several levels. As a story, it is a thrilling epic of battle. As theology, it declares that the supreme reality is feminine – the Goddess who is at once the world's delusion and its liberation. And as a guide for life, it begins where many of its readers stand: with two people who have been wronged, cannot let go, and are looking for a way through. It is fitting that it is read in the nine nights before Vijayadashami, the day of victory. To read more about how the Telugu states celebrate those nights, see our Dasara / Devi Navaratri page.