The Trinity and The Magic and Mystery of the Powerful Durga

The ancient Hindu texts from India have recorded several accounts of extremely powerful beings.

One such being, perceived to be a goddess is Durga.

There is a lot that can be written about Her but I will highlight enough to interest the reader.

The name of the ancient scripture having the accounts of Durga is called as 'Devi-Bhagvatam Purana' that is part of the Markandeya Puran (pronounced as Pu-raan).

It is said that certain sages had such extraordinary powers that they could time travel and witness the events of the past and therefore recorded what they saw in ancient texts.


Vyasa was one such sage with highly developed mental faculties who wrote most of the Hindu ancient texts (also the source of Jainism and Buddhism that are off-shoots of Hinduism and originitated in India).

The stories and principles described have a strong scientific undertone, and they are inter-galactic, talk about various forms of beings with varying degrees of technology and capabilities.

For example - the discoveries being made in Quantum physics were common knowledge in ancient India, and the texts recorded the properties of quantum physics in great detail.
In case you are surprized by what is being written - this subject has been widely discussed and documented already in great detail - many books have been written on this by some great western researchers as well, the prominent ones being the books by Gary Zukav and Fritjof Capra that have been bestsellers.

What may surprize you even further is that enough modern day scientists have dug into the scientific teachings in very ancient Hindu texts (thousands of years before even younger religions like Christianity and Islam were born) and come out enriched and amazed at the accuracy of the information packed in them. As a result in June 18, 2004, at CERN - the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva a statue of the Hindu god Shiva (in the famous Dance of Shiva pose) was installed - not for any religious affiliations of this scientifically advanced laboratory working on Quantum physics but because of the similarity of the work they discovered in the ancient Hindu texts!

Isn't that something!


'Markandeya Puran' is one of the very important ancient Hindu texts that records the transfer of knowledge between the sage Markandeya and his disciple Jaimini. Such ancient Hindu texts are referred to as Purans in Sanskrit language, and there are several Purans.

The picture seen in this article is the most popular rendition of Durga by Her worshipers (took that picture at the annual Durga holidays in India recently).

The belief in Durga is so strong in India that even to this day every year there is up to a week long holiday (in Eastern part of India specially) for schools, colleges and offices. There are 10 days of veneration of the goddess Durga and this time is known as Durga-Puja (literally meaning Durga-Veneration).
This tradition is respected by even the private European and American firms set-up in this region that give holidays during Durga-Puja.  There are a lot more days associated with Durga Puja but I will not focus on that in this blog.

Before I write any further - for most of the material presented hereafter I must acknowledge my reference to the English translation of the ancient texts done by Swami Harshanand from the Ramakrishna Math, India.

In these texts, Durga is described as 'the mysterious power, the very personification of knowledge, wisdom and memory'.

The word Durga means 'Difficult to Reach, almost inaccessible'. The description above in the texts includes the word 'memory' as well and that is notable if we want to comprehend what the texts could be alluding to.

It continues to say that Durga is both 'pleasant and beautiful' and also 'extremely terrible', and this duality is possible only for her. This is reflecting the two faces of this energy.

To understand how Durga came into being lets quickly talk about 'The (Hindu) Trinity'.

The ancient Indian texts called as the Vedas, have a very interesting founding concept of the 'Trinity' - that refers to the 'Creator, Preserver, and the Destroyer' of the universe. They are named as 'Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh' respectively that are cyclic in nature. The concept has no similarity with Christianity's 'The Holy Trinity', and in Hinduism god is considered as only one. Trinity is an aspect of one god.

If you wonder then who is the God above Trinity, for now lets say that the human mind at its current individual level is not programmed by God to go beyond the limits it comes with by default to get the answer to this question - unless the person does deep meditation and is adept at knowing the world externally and the mind internally as well.

That is why is is written in the texts that 'The Trinity' was extremely difficult to reach (that was the creator, preserver and destroyer of the universe) and only after a great effort, communication with this force was possible. One had to master the faculties of the mind as a pre-requisite to talk with the ultimate creator.

For the sake of keeping this discussion accurate and focussed on the ancient texts let me quote what I just mentioned, as given in the texts.

Source: Brhadaranyaka Upanisad
"The gods are fond of the cryptic, as it were, and dislike the evident"

Those of you who have been fans of the movie 'The Matrix' and for whom 'Trinity' rang a bell, trust me, if you dive into the awesome writings of ancient Indian Hindu texts to research, you would find numerous stories that are even more exciting and these may be considered as scientific non-fictional work of the very ancient times!

Some of the greatest scientists of the modern world like Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, Schroedinger and Oppenheimer are on record marveling at the technologically advanced teachings in the Hindu texts like Upanishads and Gita.

Now coming back the the story of Durga.

The Hindu tradition has believed that the key to the secrets of the universe can be reached by turning inwards rather than outwards. The outer world was considered an illusion (referred as Maya in the texts) and it could be projected by the inner world. Outer world is created by the inner world.

Turning inwards would lead us to unlocking the mysteries of life, and even allow us to communicate with the Gods, therefore the sages used to do intense meditation and connect with the divine.

There was a time on Earth when the human-race was troubled by a being referred as Mahishasur.
Mahishasur was not a human, but a hybrid being that had meditated enough to communicate with the 'Trinity'.

He was considered a demon ( 'asur' in Sanskrit and therefore the suffix in his name - 'Mahish-asur')
who had through his meditation and communication with 'The Trinity' accessed the knowledge to bestow upon him the boon that he could neither be killed by any man nor by any god.

God here refers to non-human beings on the positive side of the force with special powers staying in a place in space we refer to as heaven, closely watching the Earth and helping out humans. These gods were, however not as powerful as the Trinity.

Mahishasur after obtaining this boon, started creating a havoc on Earth, and in Heaven disturbing peace, and causing destruction.

The gods from the heavens approached the Trinity and appealed for putting an end to the misadventures of Mahishasur who was becoming all too powerful.

The Trinity combined their forces and created a life form that was bestowed with enormous powers and named it Durga, also referred as 'Mahishasuramardini' or the 'Destroyer of Mahishasur'.

The ancient text describes how Durga was created. The goddess was bestowed with powerful weapons that 'The Trinity' possessed.

A literal translation would read as:

'the weapons of the Trinity were cloned and formed part of the arsenal of Durga. the weapons were formidable'.

The texts give description of the weapons (again this is symbolic reference of the formidable weapons) as a powerful Trident, a Disc, a Conch, a Missile, a Bright Axe and a Magic Stick.

Durga always traveled on a ferocious swift conscious being that is interpreted by the followers as a ferocious tiger or a lion that could fly and fight.
(Note the picture above - The tiger in the picture and many hands of Durga with several weapons depicted based on the interpretation of the texts)

The tiger was also intelligent and played an important role in the battles to come. Although it is an animal, Durga could easily communicate with the tiger.

Talking about communication with animals - ancient Hindu texts time and again refer to a form of communication where animals, humans and gods could all communicate with each other. Probably they had highly developed telepathic powers that were beyond the limitations of languages of smaller groups. For example another great epic called Ramayana mentions at several places clear communication between the gods, humans and  and animals and it also talks about aircrafts called as Vimanas, and formidable weaponry that is similar to modern day multiple rocket launchers, satellite video surveillance, and many technologies we have not heard of yet!

The hymn that describes Durga becomes a lot more interesting as it literally translates to:

'The energy of Durga is the power inscrutable, by which this universe is permeated and energized. This force could be called upon for help to annihilate the evil ones. She is born out of 'Paravidya' (read Pa-raa Vid-yaa) meaning the Highest Knowledge concerning the spirit, as well as 'Aparavidya' - knowledge of the secular sciences'

It appears that Durga was created using combination of all spiritual and technological knowledge, and this intelligence was impossible to breach.

Therefore the pictorial symbolic representation (above) shows Durga with many hands with many weapons and riding on a lion or tiger.
Once she was created she descended on Earth and challenged Mahishasura for a battle.

Initially underestimating the threat, Mahishasur sent various generals of his fleet to defeat Durga but they could not stand in front of the powers that she possesed.When he came on to the battlefield himself he realized that his boon would not stand in front of the powerful female form he had as his adversary as his boon did not prevent him from being killed by a woman. However it was too late for him to retreat. He had the ability to transform himself from one form to another, and tried to change his form several times in order to confuse Durga, but each time Durga and her lion detected the new form.

This battle went on for 9 days, after which finally Durga took out the powerful 'Trident' and destroyed Mahishasura.

Peace reigned on earth after that (until other worldly beings bothered the inhabitants of the earth, and different gods came into play to protect the humans  ...).

The gods and humans were taught how to reach Durga and invoke her powers. As the story unfolds, she was called for help by chanting of Mantras (formulas) for another great battle that is again very interesting.


Interestingly the Hindu texts have a concept of Mantras - or sacred formulas that when chanted would open the communication channels with the gods. However it's not just chanting but it needed 'Tapasya' as well i.e. deep meditation (controlling the mind, realizing its potential) that has been a key pre-requisite in order to energize the mantras.

Therefore Hinduism believes in meditation (Tapasya), turning inwards and chanting mantras (understanding what they mean and not just memorizing and blurting them out).

The city of Mysore is in India, in the state named Karnataka. There is a statue of Mahishasura in Mysore.
The Mysore district derives its name from Mahishasur - it means the dwelling place of Mahishasur (thos place was the base of this demon).

You may like to read my blog on a Buddhist settlement in west Mysore district as well ...
Bylakuppe - A Buddhist Establishment in West Mysore District


There is another blog that questions the effectiveness of all the text-book gods from various religions:
The Text Book Gods and Human Evolution

Thanks for reading!
Rommel Sharma.