Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · Pan-India

Durgama, the weeping eyes and the goddess of greens

The demon Durgama wins all the Vedas from Brahma; worship stops, rain stops, and a hundred years of drought follow. The goddess appears with countless eyes and weeps for nine days until the rivers fill, feeds the world from her own body as Shakambhari, then kills Durgama and takes his name: Durga.

Who is in it

Texts: Devi Bhagavata Purana, Devi Mahatmya

The story, beat by beat

  1. Durgama decides that the gods live on the Vedas and does a thousand years of tapas.
  2. Brahma grants him all the Vedas; the brahmins forget them and every rite stops.
  3. Without offerings the gods weaken and there is no rain for a hundred years.
  4. The brahmins pray to the goddess in the Himalaya; she appears with countless eyes and weeps nine days and nights.
  5. She gives greens, fruits and roots from her body to feed the starving.
  6. She kills Durgama, returns the Vedas and says her name is Durga because of him.

drought food compassion name

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Devi Bhagavata Purana 7.28

Pan-India Shakta

Durgama, son of Ruru, works out that the strength of the gods is the Vedas. He goes to the Himalaya and lives on air for a thousand years, and Brahma comes on his swan and offers a boon. All the Vedas, he asks, and the strength to beat the gods. From that day the brahmins forget the Vedas; bathing, evening prayer, fire offerings and sacrifice all stop, the gods weaken and Durgama besieges their city. No rain falls for a hundred years. The brahmins go to the mountains and pray, and the goddess appears covered with eyes, and weeps from all of them for nine days and nights, until the water runs in rivers. She holds greens and roots and fruit and feeds the world from her own body. Then she fights Durgama, the Shaktis pouring out of her, kills him, and gives the Vedas back: these are parts of my body, keep them carefully. My name is Durga, because I killed Durgama.

Devi Bhagavata Purana 7.28, On the glory of Shatakshi Devi, tr. Swami Vijnanananda (1921)

Encyclopedia

Devi Mahatmya 11, the prophecy

Pan-India Shakta

In the older Devi Mahatmya the story is a promise. After Shumbha and Nishumbha are dead and the gods praise her as Narayani, the goddess tells them the births still to come: when rain fails for a hundred years she will be born not of a womb, look at the sages with a hundred eyes and be called Shatakshi; she will feed the world with life-sustaining plants from her own body and be called Shakambhari; and she will kill the great demon Durgama, and be called Durga. Her temples as Shakambhari stand at Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, by Sambhar Lake in Rajasthan and at Badami.

Devi Mahatmya (Wikipedia); Shakambhari (Wikipedia)

Sources: Devi Bhagavata Purana 7.28, On the glory of Shatakshi Devi, tr. Swami Vijnanananda (1921); Devi Mahatmya (Wikipedia); Shakambhari (Wikipedia)

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