The Durga Puja

This article is from Studies from an Eastern Home, a posthumous publication carrying a collection of Sister Nivedita’s writings. Here, Sister Nivedita, one of the foremost disciples of Swami Vivekananda, outlines the different dimensions of Durga Puja and the coupling of the Divine Mother’s worship with the worship of the Motherland.

- SISTER NIVEDITA

“And there was war in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in Heaven.” Archaic sentences here and there in the world’s scriptures tell us of the wars that were waged in Heaven before the beginning of time, and of the heritage—dim, prehistoric, supernatural in the natural — that was left from them to men and gods.

What is it that makes this element of mythology so clear, what force has raised it in this one case to the significance when it attains in the Chandi portion of the Markandeya Purana? This is, above all others, the Purana of Bengal. But here the central figure of the drama is no archangel, mighty in power and beauty, but the Mother herself, personification of the creative energy, focus and centre of the visible Universe. Back and forth amidst the applause of Heaven does She pursue the ever-changing demons, and at the moment of her triumph, when, ten-armed, pedestaled on the living lion and sword in hand, She subjugates her foe for ever, She is portrayed as the image of Durga. Such is the story told by the scripture— half epic, half-liturgy—from which are taken the texts that are recited over and over again from one end of Bengal to the other, with worship and fasting, throughout the great nine days, from the new moon of Ashwin, until Dussera or tenth day. Here and there are those—monks in their monasteries, perhaps, or Brahmins in their homes—who recite the whole of the Chandi again and again. But for all alike, whether they do this or not, there is but one object of contemplation—the wars that were in Heaven; one hope, and one alone—the conquest of the demons by the gods.