Long ago, the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha over took  the kingdom of Triloki from Devraj Indra and started doing all the duties of deities themselves and drove the gods out of heaven.  Then the gods remembering  the boon given to them by goddess Adishakti – that whenever the gods are in trouble, she herself will appear and relieve their distress, remembering that and going to the Himalayas and they prayed goddess jagdamba for help.  Then Mother Jagdamba appeared in the form of Kaushiki from the body of Goddess Parvati and started the war with Shumbha and Nishumbha.

After Dhumlochan and Chand-mund were killed in this war, Shumbha and Nishumbha sent the Raktbija to fight the goddess.  Raktbija brought all his army where the goddess was present and waged war with the goddess.  Kalika and Jagdamba started killing the entire army of raktbij, in this war, the energies of all the other gods  manifested in this war, taking the form of them.  The energy of Brahma came with  Kamandalu in her hand.  Narasimhi, the energy of Narasimha, also appeared with a terrible rage in the war.   Varahi of energy of Varaha, Shivaa Energy of Lord Shiva, Vaishnavi energy  of Lord Vishnu, Shakti Jagadambika of Kartikeya, Shakti Andri of Indra, similarly the energies of all the gods came to assist Mother Jagadamba in the war.

Later Mahadev, surrounded by the Goddesses, said to Chandika, to my delight you destroy all these demons.  Then a terrible and fierce Chandika Shakti appeared from the body of the Goddess and told Mahadev , Lord of Lords, you should go to Shumbha and Nishumbha soon and give this message to them, O demons, you entrust the kingdom of Triloki to Indra and go to Patala or else goddesses of mine are very eager to feed themselves with the blood of your demon soilders.  This goddess is also called Shivduti ( The one who’s messenger is shiva ) because of making Lord Shiva her messenger.  Hearing this message of Mahadev, the demons became even more angry and went towards the battleground to fight goddess.

The goddesses then waged war with the demons.  As soon as the blood of demon raktbij is shed by the goddesses, a new raktbij was produced from that blood who was similar in form and power.  As soon as Narasimhi attacked the body of raktbik with her fingernails, then a drop of blood fell from his body, a new raktbija was produced from it.  When Vaishnavi hit the raktbija with her chakra, the blood that was shed from the raktbija’s body, created many raktabija’s  in the battlefield.  The blood spilled from the thunderbolt of Andri also created many demons and who prepared for war with the goddess.  Blood spilled from the waepons of Kartikeya’s Shakti Kaumari also produced many demons similar in form and power to raktabija.  All the battlefield was now filled with many raktabijas. Then Jagdamba said to Kali, Kali, you keep your mouth open, as soon as I separate the head of this evil demon from his torso, drink all his blood.  In this way new raktabij’s will not be produced, because his blood will not fall on the ground.

On hearing these words of Jagdamba, Kalika opened her mouth and made it very gigantic .  Then all the goddesses started cutting the heads of all the raktabija’s present in the battlefield, goddess would cut the heads of the rakta bina and Kali would drink his blood at the same time.  In this way in  a short time, the goddess killed all the demons created by the blood of raktabija and after that only the original raktabij remained.  Later Goddess also stripped him of his head and killed him.

 In this way Devi killed Raktabij.

Categories: Stories of Goddess Durga

Tags: devi bhagwat, devi bhagwat puran, Raktbija, shambhavi, shivduti, shubh nishunbh, slaughter of raktbij