Page:Between the twilights being studies of Indian women by one of themselves (IA betweentwilights00soraiala).pdf/70

50 Durga. She is energy or will—the beautiful Ten-handed—and she undertook to fight the demons.

“They came just in the form of beasts, and then of men; but both she slew. There lay at her feet the buffalo, typical of all that is coarse, and the lion, typical of all that is best in the animal world; and out of the slain beasts rose one in the likeness of a man, and him also she slew—victorious. It is in this form that the instructed worship her at Durga Pooja time.”

Then I: “Expound the parable.” And he: “See you not, the spiritual conquers the bestial and animal, thus gaining strength to conquer the human also. God conquers evil. And yes, I own it, the ultimate conquest of evil is by the agency of a woman, for the Creator so ordained it; she alone is capable of conquest for others—but they were the Gods and not the Goddesses who gave her the power to conquer. The Great God but accepted the service, the devotion in this matter of the woman, and so, has he not honoured her for all Eternity?”

“She alone is capable of conquest for