Forbidden by Shiva to go to her father Daksha's sacrifice, Sati turns dark and terrible; when Shiva runs, she stands before him in every direction in ten forms, names them, and goes. Oral tellings put the same ring of ten round Shiva when he tries to leave Parvati or Kali.
Sati asks to go to her father's sacrifice; Shiva says going uninvited is like death and Daksha insults him daily; she says a daughter needs no invitation and she will break the sacrifice if he is insulted; he says she will hear what she cannot bear; at last he says she is beyond his control. Angry, she laughs, loses her golden colour and stands dark, four-armed, hair loose, tongue out, with a garland of heads, a crescent and a crown. He runs; she calls do not fear; she stands in all the quarters in ten forms; he closes his eyes, opens them on a smiling dark goddess facing south, asks where Sati is, and is told she is Sati. She names Kali in front, Tara, Chhinnamasta right, Bhuvaneshvari left, Bagala behind, Dhumavati south-east as a widow, Tripura Sundari south-west, Matangi north-west, Shodashi north-east, and herself as Bhairavi. He asks pardon; she becomes one form; a chariot of ten thousand lions driven by Nandi takes her to Daksha's city while Shiva weeps.
Sati first praises Shiva; among his reasons against going is that it is Sunday and travel to the west is not proper; she reminds him of her svayamvara wish never to hear him insulted or else to leave her body; he says do as you like. She weeps, then blazes, fire from the third eye, dark as night, four-armed, shaking the mountain. He runs; she cries do not fear; ten forms in ten directions; he shuts his eyes; she faces him from the south: only my colour has changed. She is subtle Prakriti and shows the forms to prove she can end the sacrifice: Kali in front, Tara in the sky as time, Chhinnamasta right, Bhuvaneshvari left, Bagalamukhi behind, Dhumavati, Sundari, Matangi and Shodashi in the corners, and herself as Bhairavi within his body. She gathers them into one; he asks pardon; she flies as Kali, the tiger skin streaming.
What is different here:
Tears before anger; the Sunday line; the svayamvara promise; Tara in the sky; Bhairavi inside Shiva; the forms gathered into her (Kinsley reads that she leaves them with Shiva).
North India · VaranasiFolktantrika teachers, as told to David Kinsley
A tantrika told the mahant of the Kashi Vishvanath temple that Shiva, living with Parvati in her father's house, decided to leave; she asked him to stay; he refused; she blocked the ten doors of the house with her ten forms; the house is the body and the doors its openings. A Hindi book on Tara: in the Satya Yuga Shiva, tired of living with Kali, sets off wherever he wishes; in every direction a form of Kali appears, Kali, Tara, Shodashi, Bhuvaneshvari, Bagalamukhi, Bhairavi, Kamala, Dhumavati, Matangi, Chhinnamasta, until he no longer wants to leave, knowing she is everywhere.
What is different here:
No sacrifice and no father; the wife is Parvati or Kali; Kinsley found no written source for the Parvati telling.
Sources: The Mahabhagavata Purana, English translation (archive.org upload; Pushpendra Kumar's edition, translator not named); David Kinsley, Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas (University of California Press, 1997); Brihaddharma Purana, Sanskrit with Hindi translation by S. N. Khandelwal (archive.org)