Durga Fierce, Free & Forever Sacred

Durga, the invincible, inaccessible, is one of the most beloved manifestations of the divine mother in Hindu tradition. First appearing in the Mahapuranas around the third century CE, she represents Adi Parashakti, the primal cosmic energy from which all creation flows. Her story is told in the Devi Mahatmya of the Markandeya Purana and echoed in the Skanda Purana, the Mahabharata, and many tantric texts. The most enduring image of Durga is Mahishasuramardini, the ten-armed goddess who slays the buffalo demon Mahisha. Summoned by the gods, she takes up their weapons when no other power can withstand him and fights alone. With the lion as her mount and her energy blazing, Durga shows she needs no protector, partner, or validation. She embodies courage and salvation, the radiant force of truth, knowledge, and self-realisation.

Power in her own right

Unlike many goddesses whose identities are linked to consortship, Durga is sovereign. She may sometimes be associated with Shiva, but unlike Parvati, she is not defined by marriage or motherhood. Her relationship to him is not one of dependence, but of companionship, two forces sharing the cosmic task of defeating evil. In her battle with Mahishasur, Durga embodies the fierce, uncompromising face of womanhood. She borrows the powers of the gods but does not surrender them back in subservience. Instead, she reveals that power once awakened belongs entirely to her.

The Jungian scholar Mary Esther Harding, writing of the archetype of the Virgin Goddess, observed: “Her divine power does not depend on her relation to a husband-god… she bears her identity through her right.” Durga illustrates this truth in the Hindu imagination: she is defined by her strength and essence, not by the roles others assign her.

Sovereignty of being

Too often, societies measure women by the expectations of others as daughters, wives and mothers, rather than as complete beings in themselves. In mythology, however, independence does not mean absence or withdrawal. It means wholeness. Across cultures, powerful goddesses, Athena in Greece, Artemis in Rome, Ishtar in Mesopotamia, carried authority that did not pass through husbands or lovers. Some were protectors, some were fierce warriors, and others were nurturers of life. Yet in every case, they embodied sovereign power.

Durga belongs to this same lineage. She is not diminished by dependency. Her shakti, the energy that sustains the cosmos, is entirely her own. In some regional retellings of her story, Mahishasur is cast as a demon and a rejected suitor. Read this way, the battle acquires another meaning: the refusal of any force, human or cosmic, to define or contain her being. She resists possession, reminding us that autonomy of mind, spirit, and identity, is sacred.

The many faces of the goddess

Durga is not singular but multiple. The Markandeya Purana describes her ten forms — Mahishasuramardini, Jagadhatri, Kali and Tara, etc. Together, they reveal the many aspects of feminine strength: nurturing, protective, wise, creative and sometimes destructive. She is both a tender mother and a terrifying warrior, a source of life and a force of dissolution. This multiplicity connects her to the archetype of the Triple Goddess, recognised across cultures as maiden, mother, and crone. Each stage mirrors a truth of existence: independence, sustenance, and transformation. Durga herself encompasses the cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction, the eternal rhythm of birth, growth, death, and renewal.

Her worship in Bengal reflects this diversity. The spring Basanti Puja celebrates regeneration, while the autumn Sharodiya Puja marks transformation. The latter, now synonymous with Bengali identity, traces back to Rama’s invocation of the goddess before his battle with Ravana, the Akal Bodhan, or worship at an uncustomary time. Today, the fragrance of shiuli blossoms, the beat of the dhak, and the sight of the goddess descending with her children remind us of this eternal renewal cycle.

The eternal return of Durga

Durga Puja is more than a ritual. It is a cultural reaffirmation of strength, independence and renewal. Communities see in her not just beauty and protection but also courage and sovereignty. Her lion’s roar and array of weapons remind us that compassion without strength can falter, and strength without compassion can destroy.

As the dhunuchi naach swirls and the conch shells echo, the festival reminds us that the divine feminine is not an adjunct to masculinity, but a complete power in herself. Durga is eternal — fierce, free, and forever sacred. She reminds us that knowledge and devotion, independence and belonging, tenderness and strength can coexist, not as contradictions but as the fullness of human life.

This Puja, as we bow before her image, we honour not just the slayer of demons but the sovereign spirit of womanhood itself. She remains invincible, inaccessible, and inexhaustible, a reminder that the feminine divine cannot be subdued in every age, only celebrated.

Goddess in a patriarchal world

Over time, patriarchal cultures have attempted to domesticate Durga. In northern India, she has been softened into the image of a gentle daughter and wife, dependent on family tenderness. In the south, she has sometimes been portrayed as a threatening bride, dangerous to approach. Both interpretations reflect society’s effort to contain a force too vast to be neatly framed, idealising her into harmlessness or demonising her into fear.

But Durga resists such reductions. She cannot be confined to roles written for her by the patriarchy. She belongs to no man, no household, and no hierarchy. She reminds us that women are complete beings in themselves, not merely caretakers, supporters, or adjuncts to someone else’s story. For centuries, independent women were dismissed as selfish, unruly, or disruptive. The suspicion once directed at the goddess herself has often been mirrored in attitudes toward real women who chose to live on their terms. Yet as more women today assert their independence, pursue ambitions, and live lives not bound to traditional roles, Durga’s example feels ever more urgent and alive.