Devalok
Legend · 2 tellings · Pan-India

The war with Bhanda

Who is in it

Places: Shunyaka · Texts: Lalitopakhyana, Lalita Sahasranama

The story, beat by beat

  1. Goddesses rise from Lalita's goad and noose to lead her elephants and horses.
  2. Bhanda sends his thirty sons to take her alive.
  3. Bala begs to fight; Lalita holds her close and gives her a swan-drawn palanquin from her bow.
  4. Bala burns the army with the Narayana missile and kills the thirty sons with thirty arrows.
  5. Vishukra's Jayavighna yantra makes the goddesses lay down their arms.
  6. Lalita laughs at Kameshvara's face and Mahaganapati comes from the light and breaks the charm.
  7. Mantrini and Dandanatha kill the two brothers.
  8. Lalita answers every weapon, calls avatars from her nails and kills Bhanda with the Mahakameshvara missile.
  9. The gods bring Rati; Lalita's side-glance brings Kama back; he goes to Shiva and Skanda kills Taraka.

war children courage revival

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Lalitopakhyana 16 and 26 to 30

Pan-India Shakta

Sampatkari rises from the goad, a cavalry goddess from the noose. Bhanda sends his thirty sons with two hundred akshauhinis to capture Lalita alive. Bala, Lalita's daughter, always nine, asks to fight; Lalita refuses (your limbs are tender, you are my breath), then embraces her and gives armour, weapons and a swan-drawn palanquin from the staff of her bow. Bala burns the army with the Narayana missile and kills the sons with thirty crescent-tipped arrows. Vishukra throws the Jayavighna yantra into the camp and the Shaktis lose heart; Lalita looks at Kameshvara and laughs, and Mahaganapati comes from her smile, breaks the slab with his tusks, defeats Gajasura and is granted worship before all gods. Mantrini kills Vishukra, Dandanatha Vishanga. In the last battle avatars come from her nails; the Narayana, Pashupata and Mahakameshvara missiles end the army, the generals and Bhanda; Shunyaka burns. The gods ask her to revive Kama; her side-glance does it; Kama moves Shiva to marry Parvati, and Skanda kills Taraka.

Lalitopakhyana ch. 16, March of victory along with the army, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib); Lalitopakhyana ch. 26 to 28, Bhanda's sons, the exploits of Gananatha, Vishukra and Vishanga slain, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib); Lalitopakhyana ch. 29 and 30, Slaying of Bhanda and resurrection of Madana, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib)

Primary text (translation)

Lalita Sahasranama 64 to 84, with Bhaskararaya

Pan-India Shakta

About twenty names tell the war in order: the army of Shaktis, Sampatkari's elephants, Ashvarudha's horses, the chariots Chakraraja, Geyachakra (Mantrini) and the boar-shaped Kirichakra (Dandanatha), the fortress of fire of Jvalamalini, the Nityas, Bala against the thirty sons, Mantrini killing Vishanga, Varahi killing Vishukra, Ganesha formed by her look at Kameshvara's face and breaking the yantra, the ten avatars from her ten fingernails, the Mahapashupata, Kameshvara's weapon burning Bhanda, the gods' praise, and the healing herb that revived Kama. Bhaskararaya also reads Bhanda as the soul that thinks itself bound.

What is different here:

The brothers' killers are swapped; all ten avatars are listed from thumb to little finger; Ashvarudha is named.

Lalita Sahasranama with Bhaskararaya's commentary, tr. R. Ananthakrishna Sastry (2nd ed. 1925, archive.org)

Sources: Lalitopakhyana ch. 16, March of victory along with the army, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib); Lalitopakhyana ch. 26 to 28, Bhanda's sons, the exploits of Gananatha, Vishukra and Vishanga slain, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib); Lalitopakhyana ch. 29 and 30, Slaying of Bhanda and resurrection of Madana, tr. G. V. Tagare (wisdomlib); Lalita Sahasranama with Bhaskararaya's commentary, tr. R. Ananthakrishna Sastry (2nd ed. 1925, archive.org)

More stories with the same people

Origin

The goddess from the fire

A demon made from Kama's ashes takes half the strength of any foe; the gods offer their bodies to a great fire, Lalita rises from the light, and she chooses Kameshvara with a garland.

Legend

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Hayagriva teaches Agastya everything about Lalita but her thousand names, and waits to be asked; the names were made by the goddesses of speech at her command and first sung before an assembly of all the worlds. Tirumeeyachur says she made them after the war, when her anger cooled.

Legend

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Shiva and Parvati must choose between their two sons.

Local story

Murugan and Valli

Murugan woos Valli, a hunter chief's daughter guarding the millet fields, as a hunter, a tree and an old man, and wins her with his brother Ganesha's help as a wild elephant; when her father's men attack, they fall, and she brings them back to life.

How a tradition frames it

All as one: the Smarta Panchayatana

The Smarta school worships five deities — Ganesha, Shiva, Shakti, Vishnu and Surya, with Kartikeya added in the south — set in a quincunx around the worshipper's chosen one, as equal forms of the one Brahman; tradition credits Adi Shankara, though the practice is older.

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Ravana wins Shiva's own linga by fierce penance, to take home to Lanka.

Temple legend

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Parvati asks Shiva for the secret of never dying.