Page:History of Bengali Language and Literature.djvu/261

 IV.] BENGALI LANGUAGE & LITERATURE: 227 urged, could assuage the pain of troubled hearts. We need not enter into the philosophy of this faith. It is a solution of the problem of evils, arrived at, froma point of view, other than that in which a god of evil matches his power against a god of good. Being asked how this goddess came into existence, Markandeya said that she who appears as the phenomena of the Universe is eternal, but people trace her origin from that time when she first became manifest to the gods. Here the sage gives a mythological story. At one time the demon Mahisasura became so _ power-. ful that he took possession by force of the king- dom of heaven, driving away Indra its king, and the god of death, of wealth, and of ocean who were his. associates and _ officers. Crest- fallen and humiliated they wandered for a time on earth, bemoaning their lot, and then went to Vaikuntha, with Brahma at their head, and applied to Vishu—the greatest god of the Hindu Trinity, for help. Visnu heard the story of the misfortunes that had befallen them and anger flashed from his brow. Simultaneously on the angry faces of Civa and Brahma, appeared the same terrible light. The other gods were also moved by sudden anger and from that vast assembly sparks of fire arose like a terrible conflagration and ex- tended to the farthest limits of the firmament. This fire, which appeared as a destructive force, gradually gathered itself together and took the shape of a goddess resplendent in glory, who stood majestically before the mighty host of gods. The sparks of godly power from (iva created the queen-like majesty of the face of the voddess, The mytho- logical story.