z:\ ambedkar\vol 04\vol4 03.indd MK SJ YS 21 9 2013/YS 8 11 2013 102
102 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
Kaithabha ! Of science, thou art the science of Brahma (or of the Vedas), the great sleep of embodied beings. O mother of Skanda (Kartikeya), divine Durga, dweller in wildernesses’. Thou, great goddess, art praised with a pure heart. By thy favour let me ever be victorious in battle.”
From this hymn it does appear that some of the Goddesses listed above are simply different names of Durga. Similarly, Dasabhuja, Singhavahini, Mahishamardini, Jagaddhatri, Chinnamustaka, Jagadgauri, Pratyangiri, Annapurna are the same as Durga or different forms of Durga.
There are thus two principal Goddesses. One is Parvati and the other is Durga. The rest are mere names. Parvati is the daughter of Daksha Prajapati and the wife of Shiva and Durga is the sister of Krishna and the wife of Shiva. The relationship of Durga and Kali is not quite clear. According to the hymn sung by Arjuna, Durga and Kali would appear to be one and the same. But the Linga Purana seems to suggest a different view. According to it [1], Kali is distinct from Durga.
A comparison between the Vedic Goddesses and the Puranic Goddesses cannot be avoided by a student whose business it is not merely to write history but to interpret history. On one point there is a striking contrast, between the two. The worship of the Vedic Goddesses was worship by courtesy. They were worshipped only because they were the wives of Gods. The worship of the Puranic Goddesses stand on a different footing. They claim worship in their own right and not because they are wives of Gods. This difference arises because the Vedic Goddesses never went to the battlefield and never performed any heroic deed. The Puranic Goddesses on the other hand went to the battlefield and performed great heroic deeds. Their worship was not by courtesy. It was based upon their heroic and thundering deeds.
There was a great battle, it is said, between Durga and the two asuras which brought renown to Durga. The story is told in the Markandeya Purana in full details. It says [2 ] :
At the close of the Treta Age, two giants, named Sumbha and Nishumbha performed religious austerities for 10,000 years, the merit of which brought Shiva from heaven, who discovered that by this extraordinary devotion, they sought to obtain the blessing of immortality. He reasoned long with them, and vainly endeavoured to persuade them to ask for any other gift. Being denied what they specially wanted, they entered upon still more severe
1 Wilkins Ibid., pp. 313.
2 Wilkins Ibid., pp. 302-306.