Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/23

 goddess described as beautiful but terrific-mouthed fit to devour the universe at one gulp, why is she represented tender and powerful at the same time, why are the black goat and the buffalo sacrificed to her, and why is the festival so universally observed all over India, are questions which may strike the thinking mind, and there is but one answer for them. Because the goddess is none other than Aurora, the Dawn of the Vedas.

In the mythology of the Puranas and in the mysticisms of the Tantras this, the first and grandest of festivals so universally observed and so solemnly celebrated throughout India, was associated with a portentious event in the history of the heavens. The kingdom of heaven was in danger, the Demons and Asuras made all powerful by the suffrance of the Almighty attacked the regions of the gods, dethroned them, reduced them to the most abject condition of poverty and defied the command of the Creator himself. In this imminent crisis help was invoked of Vishnu the lord of gods. He was so indignant at beholding their wretchedness that streams of glory rushed forth from his face from which sprang Mahamaya. Streams of glory issued also from the faces of the other gods and entered the person of Mahamaya, who became a body of glory resembling a mountain on fire. The gods then gave their weapons to this lady, who in a frightful rage ascended into the air. This Pauranic myth is commemorated by the celebration of the Durgotsava, the festival of Durga, the Goddess Saviour of the gods from the scourge of the Demon. The event was of no small interest to the people of the Dark Ages of India. The Kingdom of Heaven was