Born of Combined Light

The tejas of all the gods pours out and becomes Her. Power that only exists when the parts stop acting alone.

The exiled gods go together to Vishnu and Shiva, and as the great ones hear the depth of the defeat, their anger blazes into light. A great tejas pours from every god and fuses into one, taking form as the radiant Goddess, each of her limbs shaped from a different god's light. The tradition reads her as the power that exists only when the parts stop acting alone: the integrated whole no single strength could be.

The Gods Go to the Great Ones

Homeless and beaten, the gods stopped trying to win alone. They went together, the whole exiled host of them, to the two greatest, Vishnu and Shiva, and they told the story plainly. How Mahishasura had taken heaven. How he had seized the offices of the gods. How every single one of them, sent in with his own strength, had been thrown back. They held nothing back and they asked for nothing specific. They simply laid the whole defeat down in front of the great gods and waited.

And something happened that no weapon had managed. As Vishnu and Shiva heard how far the arrogance had gone, a great anger rose in them, and the anger did not stay anger. It turned to light.

The Light Pours Out

From Vishnu's face, creased with fury, a huge radiance streamed out. From Shiva's face came another. Then Brahma, and Indra, and every god present, each blazed, and out of each poured his own tejas, his fiery inner power, the concentrated light of what he was. The streams did not scatter. They rushed toward one another, drawn as if by a single will, and gathered into a blazing mass that stood in the sky like a mountain of fire, filling the three worlds with its glow.

Watch what has changed. A moment ago there were many gods, each holding his own strength close, each already defeated with it. Now that same strength is leaving their separate hands and pouring into one place. The light that had lost every battle as a dozen scattered fires is becoming a single sun.

She Takes Form

And the mountain of light took shape. It became a Goddess, radiant beyond any of them, and she was made of all of them at once. Her form was built limb by limb from the gods' light:

• Her face, from the radiance of Shiva
• Her arms, from the tejas of Vishnu
• Her waist, from the light of Indra, her feet from Brahma
• Her hair, from the light of Yama, and on through every god

She was not assembled like a machine from parts. She was fused into one living, breathing power in whom no single god could any longer be picked out.

नमो देव्यै महादेव्यै शिवायै सततं नमः। नमः प्रकृत्यै भद्रायै नियताः प्रणताः स्म ताम्॥

namo devyai mahā-devyai śivāyai satataṃ namaḥ | namaḥ prakṛtyai bhadrāyai niyatāḥ praṇatāḥ sma tām ||

Salutations to the Goddess, to the Great Goddess, to the auspicious one, always. Salutations to Prakriti, the gracious; with steady hearts we bow to Her.

Devi Mahatmyam 5.9 (Aparajita Stuti)

She pervaded the worlds with her radiance before she had lifted a single weapon. Form came first, and it was already enough to make the exiled gods fall silent. The thing that could meet Mahishasura was not a better fighter than the demon. It was a different order of being altogether, one that had simply not existed while the gods kept their powers apart.

The Whole the Parts Could Not Be

This is the turning point of the whole deed. No god could beat the buffalo-demon. Their combined light could, because the combined light was not a bigger pile of gods. It was a new power that came into being only when the parts stopped acting alone.

This is the answer to the helplessness of the last lesson. The arrogance that beats each of your strengths taken singly cannot beat the strength that appears when they fuse. You have felt the difference on the rare days when it happens. Your discipline, your feeling, your reason, and your resolve stop taking turns and competing. They pour into one steady thing. And a problem that had defeated each of them alone simply meets its match. That fused self is not a committee of your parts. It is a different order of you, and most of the time it is not switched on.

Notice, too, what became of the anger. The gods' fury did not stay as heat and grievance. It was transmuted into light and given a form that could act. The tradition is precise about this: the raw energy of righteous anger is not the enemy. Left scattered, it only exhausts you. Gathered and given a single shape, it becomes the very power that steadies the thing you were furious at.

या देवी सर्वभूतेषु कान्तिरूपेण संस्थिता। नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमस्तस्यै नमो नमः॥

yā devī sarva-bhūteṣu kānti-rūpeṇa saṃsthitā | namas tasyai namas tasyai namas tasyai namo namaḥ ||

To the Goddess who dwells in all beings in the form of radiance, salutations to Her, salutations to Her, again and again salutations.

Devi Mahatmyam, Chapter 5 (Ya Devi refrain, the radiance aspect)

The Goddess stands formed and radiant, filling the sky. But she is not yet armed. In the next lesson the gods come forward again, and this time each hands her not his light but his weapon, so that the one power carries, all at once, every capacity they own. That is where we go next.