Navratri Series – Symbolism of Goddess Durga

In this article, we will discover the symbolism of the form and story of Goddess Durga.

The word Durga comes from Durgam, which means “difficult”. Mahishasur (Mahisha means buffalo, asur means demon) had the boon that no male could kill him. Hence, Mahishasur was undefeated by the Gods, so they brought forth Goddess Durga to accomplish the difficult task of destroying him.

Goddess Kali is an aggressive form of Goddess Durga, who demolished the demon Raktbeej.

The fearsome form of Goddess Kali depicts her holding a skull-cup in one hand and a long tongue to lick the blood dripping from Raktbeej. She does this to prevent the demon’s blood from falling on earth.

Every drop of the demon’s blood is like a seed that falls on earth, giving rise to new Raktbeej – the generation of new demons. In this manner, the vicious cycle continues.

This cycle symbolizes karmic bondage. Every karma that we perform acts like a seed and begets results. Each result again leads to new karma. So, how can we be free of this karmic cycle?

Each karma needs to be performed without the feeling of doership. This means we need to act without the notion of “I, Me and Mine” – devoid of the ego. When we consider our karma to be the fruit itself without expecting any other result, then such karma leads to liberation from this cycle.

With each form, the Goddess vanquished a particular demon like Mahishasur, Raktbeej or Bhairav. We too, need to fight the demon within us – our comparing, judgmental and labeling mind. The mind weighs and labels everything as either good or bad, happy or sad, more and less, thereby causing sorrow.

To help us accomplish this durgam task we seek the help of the Goddess (Shakti) – the expression of the Self within us, and march on with this inner battle waging within us.

In the next article, we will look at the symbolism of Vijayadashmi – the slaying of Ravana.