The Night Inside the Mountain's Daughter

The gods had come to Brahma with their trouble, and Brahma had sent them home with a promise.

The trouble was the demon Taraka. None of them could beat him. Only a son of Shiva could, and Shiva had no wife. Sati was dead, and Shiva sat alone in a cave in the Himalayas, and the three worlds looked empty to him.

"Be patient," Brahma had told the gods. "I have a plan."

When they had gone, he turned his mind to someone very old. Ratri, the Night, had come out of Brahma's own body at the beginning of things. He thought of her, and she stood before him.

"Ratri," he said, "there is work to be done for the gods, and only you can do it."

He told her about Taraka. He told her that Sati would be born again, as the daughter of the mountain king Himachala and his queen Mena, and that she would win Shiva a second time.

"Go into Mena," he said. "Enter the child she is carrying and make the child's colour dark."

It was an odd thing to ask, and Brahma explained it. One day, after the wedding, Shiva would tease his wife about her dark skin. She would be angry and go away to the forest, and what she gained there would make her child strong enough to kill Taraka.

"There is something in it for you as well," he said. "There are demons in this world that you must destroy, and you cannot do it as you are. Wrap yourself around Parvati, and let her strength pass into you. When she is fair again, you will come out. People will worship you under the name Ekanamsha, and under many other names, and you will give them what they ask for."

Then the creator praised the Night, and called her the dark night at the end of all the worlds.

"I will do as you say," said Ratri.

She went to the mountain king's house and found Mena in a room lit by jewels. The queen had an amulet of healing herbs at her neck and soft bedding laid out. Night waited.

The sun went down. The moon came up over the mountains, the birds rustled in their roosts, and the household grew drowsy. When Mena's eyes were closing, Ratri slipped in at her mouth, went down into the womb, and coloured the unborn child dark. She stayed there until the birth.

Parvati was born at a lucky hour. The stars shone brighter, and wild creatures grew gentle.

Everything happened as Brahma had said. Parvati won Shiva. Shiva teased her and called her the dark one, and she went away, hurt, to live the hard life of the forest.

Brahma came to her there. "Child, what do you want?"

"He called me dark," said Parvati. "Let my colour be like gold."

"It shall be so," said Brahma. "And you shall be half of his body."

At once her skin, which had been the colour of a blue lotus, turned golden. The darkness came away from her, and it did not fall to the ground. It stood up beside her as the goddess Ratri, three-eyed, dressed in yellow and red, with a bell in her hand.

"Ratri," said Brahma, "you are blessed by having touched Parvati. This lion, born of her anger, is yours to ride and to carry on your banner. Go to the Vindhya mountains. The work of the gods is waiting for you there."

So the goddess went to the Vindhya, and the text gives her one more name as she goes: Kaushiki. Parvati went home to Shiva.

The Skanda Purana tells the same story, and in places almost word for word. But it uses other names for the Night, and it tells her more about her future.

Here Brahma remembers Nisha, the Night, "his own body, born long ago", and he speaks to her alone, where no one can overhear.

"Enter Mena," he says, "and make the child dark, so that she will be Kali, the dark one. Rudra will laugh at her for it. She will go and do a great penance, and she will get her fair colour back."

Then he tells Night what waits for her when she comes out again.

"There are demons whom the whole world cannot defeat. Chanda and Munda lead them. You are the one who must kill them, after you leave Parvati's body. Because you kill Chanda and Munda, the world will know you as Chamunda."

Night joins her palms. "So be it," she says, and she hurries to the Himalaya.

She finds Mena pale, with healing herbs tied to her limbs and holy words said over them. The Skanda Purana does not wait for nightfall. Mena's eyes close for a moment, and in that moment Night goes in. This telling calls her Vibhavari here, another word for night, and says that she coloured the goddess.

One detail belongs to this telling alone. Parvati is born at the brahma muhurta, the hour just before dawn. The Night has finished her work, and the child comes with the first light.

Years later the ending is the same. Parvati asks Brahma for a golden colour. A lady the colour of a blue lotus steps out of her, fierce, three-eyed, a bell in her hand, wearing yellow silk. Brahma gives her the lion and sends her to the Vindhya.

"There you will kill Shumbha and Nishumbha," he says, "the commanders of Taraka's army."

"Let it be so," says the goddess, whom the text now calls Kaushiki.