Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/26

 great, she brings wealth, she is always the same immortal divine, she does not grow old, she is the young goddess, she was born of the gods to slay the powers of darkness (the Dasyus), she fills the air with light and she spreads the sky, she hides her face in water when she sees her husband. Yet she says she will come again and after the sun has travelled through the world in search of the beloved, when he is in the threshold of death, and is going to end his solitary life, she appears again in the Gloaming, the same as the Dawn, at the end of the dreary day when the sun seemed to die away in the far west, the heavens opened and the glorious image of the Dawn rose again, her beauty deepened by a gloaming darkness. O Indra thou struckest the daughter of Dyus (the Dawn) a woman difficult to vanquish".

The above quoted passages of the Vedas are fraught with interesting meaning, and each individual sentence has been developed in the Puranas into anecdotes that fill pages.

Dawn knows no destinction of rank of wealth in her visitations. As the poet says the moon does not withhold his light from the house of even a Chandala, so Dawn, Durga, according to the Puranas may be worshipped by men of all castes, aye even by the mlechchhas or the infidels. In her capacity of a bringer of wealth Dawn is worshipped in the form of Durga, and is prayed to bless men with plenty. Dawn never grows old, nor does Durga, she is said to be full with the freshness of youth. Durga as Mahamaya was born