The lion-riding warrior goddess, the Invincible
Durga—'she who is hard to approach'—is the great battle form of the Goddess: serene and beautiful of face, her ten arms holding weapons lent by the gods themselves—Shiva's trident, Vishnu's discus, Indra's thunderbolt, the wind god's bow, Yama's staff—as she rides a golden lion into the demon ranks.
Her central myth is told in the Devi Mahatmya. The buffalo demon Mahishasura, granted immunity from death at the hands of any male, drove the gods from heaven. In their despair the gods poured out their wrath and power as streams of flame, and the light condensed into a goddess. Durga fought the demon armies for nine nights while Mahishasura slipped between buffalo, lion, elephant and human shapes; on the tenth day she pinned the buffalo under her foot and struck off his head at the instant his true form emerged from its mouth. That victory is one origin of the festival of Vijayadashami, or Dussehra.
Each autumn Durga Puja transforms Bengal: artisans model tableaux of the goddess slaying the demon from Ganges clay, thousands of temporary pavilions called pandals rise across Kolkata, and on the last day the images are carried in procession and immersed in the river. In 2021 UNESCO inscribed Durga Puja in Kolkata on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
