In ancient times there was a monster named Durgam.  The Vedas are the power of the gods and if the Vedas are no longer with the Gods, then they will become powerless , thinking so he went to the Himalayas to perform austerities to obtain the Vedas. Pleasing Brahma by penance, he also gained the power to defeat the gods and obtain the vedas.Durgam then defeated the gods and drove them out of heaven , they then started staying in caves of mountains.

Then all the Brahmins forgot the Vedas, the rivers, ponds and wells all dried up, not even a single drop of water was present  on the earth, all the living beings started to die .  Corpses were spread in every house.  Defeated  by Durgam ,gods hid in caves and on mountains.  Seeing all this, all the Brahmins went to the Himalayas to pray and worship the Goddess.  Pleased with their prayer, the goddess appeared in front of them  in her divine form  with infinite eyes and the streams of water started falling from her infinite eyes, this filled all the ponds, rivers and the sea water also increased. Goddess gave all kinds of herbs to all the animals to eat, which made all the creatures satisfied.  As goddess shed water through her infinite eyes, she came to be known in the world with the name Shatakshi (Infinite eyed one) and due to giving herbs to the creatures, she came to be known in the world as Shakambhari.

 Knowing all these things from the messenger, the demon durgam prepared his army for the battle and came to the place where the goddess was present and surrounded the gods with Brahmins using  his army.

Seeing this ,all the Brahmins and Gods, became afraid, then the goddess set up a bright somewhere of energy around gods and brahmins  to protect them and herself went out alone and started to fight with the Durgam.  The arms of both the gods and the demons covered the sun, the sound of the arrows echoed hitting all directions

Then a lot of fierce goddess appeared from the body of the Jagdamba named Kalika, Tarini, Bala, Bagla, Tripura, Bhairavi, Rama, Matangi, Triparasundari, Kamakshi, Devi Tulja, Jambhini, Chinnamasta, Mohini, Guhyakali and ten thousand goddesses named bahuka etc., later manifested in sixty four Yoginis and countless other goddesses appeared.  All these goddesses had weapons in their arms and all these goddesses together ended the entire army of demons.  Seeing the end of all his army in such a way, now durgam himself came in battle field and stood in front of the goddesses.

In ten days, the entire army of demons was killed and a river of blood started flowing there, where this war was going on. After this, on the eleventh day, durgam  came in the battlefield with all energy and  with great enthusiasm and brought his chariot in front of the chariot of the goddess. Then there was a terrible fight between  goddess and durgam till noon, after midday goddess used fifteen arrows, four arrows for four horses, one arrow finished the charioteer.  Two arrows were targeted the two eyes of the durgam, two arrows cut his two arms, one arrow cut the flag on the chariot and five arrows pierced the chest of  durgam, and ripped his chest.  This ended life of durgam.  After the end of durgam all the  deities and Brahmins started praising the goddess.

Goddess ended the monster named Durgam, hence she became famous in the world as Durga Devi.

Categories: Stories of Goddess Durga

Tags: devi bhagwat, devi bhagwat puran, durga, durga name, durgam, shakambhari, shatakshi, Story of durga