Durga Puja, the ten-day long festival in honour of the goddess Durga, is eastern India’s most important festival. It is celebrated with great vigour in the eastern states of West Bengal, Orissa, Tripura, Assam and Jharkhand. The Puja is also celebrated in Nepal and Bhutan. Though a Hindu festival, the celebrations have a large secular component in the form of food, music, art, handicrafts and dance.

The festival falls during the autumn, in the first ten days of the waxing moon of Ashvin, the sixth month of the Indian lunar calendar, though the actual puja or worship of the goddess is usually performed from the sixth to the tenth day of the waxing moon. These dates fall sometime in late September or October.

According to the Krittibas Ramayan, the hero Ram invokes Durga in his battle against the Rakshas king, Ravan. Though the conventional time for the worship of Durga was spring or basant, Ram had to call upon the goddess in autumn. Slowly, over time, the people of eastern India adopted Rama’s autumnal invocation of the goddess, so that autumn became the main season for the worship of Durga. The inauguration of worship, or bodhan, of Durga in the month of Ashvin is also called Akalbodhan – an unconventional time for the invocation of the goddess.

The spring worship of Durga still appears in the Hindu almanac as Basanti Puja.

People from all religions and communities join in the festivities. Cities, towns and villages take on a carnival air. Pandals – elaborate, temporary structures of bamboo, canvas, cloth – are set up at street corners, in parks and gardens, or wherever there is some empty space. The image of the goddess is installed in these pandals with great ceremony, and hundeds gather for the evening puja. This kind of ‘sarvajanik’ or community puja began during the nineteenth century. Family pujas, which are a tradition much older than the community pujas, are still held by some of the older families, though the puja is open to all.

The preparations for the puja start on Pratipada, the first day of the waxing moon. An earthern pitcher filled with Ganga water, its mouth covered with green mango leaves, is installed with great ceremony and with an invocation to Ganesh, the god of beginnings. Then the goddess Durga is invoked, and worshipped with flowers, leaves, durva grass, newly harvested grain, and earthenware lamps or diyas. Barley seeds are planted in little pots. An earthenware lamp is kept burning in front of the pitcher during the remaining nine days of the puja.

On Panchami, the fifth day, the invocation, or bodhan, of the goddess begins. On Sasthi, the sixth day of the waxing moon, the image of the goddess Durga is installed in the pandals with great ceremony. The eyes of the image are painted on, signifying that the goddess is ‘alive’, or that divinity has entered the image. Now the puja begins in earnest: Bodhan is complete, the drums of the dhakis start beating, and the festivities commence. From Saptami, the seventh day, the actual worship of the goddess begins. People wear new clothes and visit the puja pandals. The next day, Maha-ashthami, the eight day of the waxing moon, a goat is sacrificed to Durga. This is symbolic of the slaying of the demon Mahishasura by the goddess. Some sects, like the Ramakrishna Mission, hold a kanya puja on this day: little girls held to represent the goddess herself, are given gifts and served a ceremonial and lavish meal. The ninth day, Mahanavami, is the most sacred. On this day the goddess is closest to the people.

It is believed that Durga visits her parents Haimavat (the Himalaya mountain personified) and Maina during the ten days of the autumn puja. Dashami (or Bijoya) the tenth day of the waxing moon, is the day when she must return to Mount Kailash, the abode of her husband, Shiva. At midday, the goddess’s hair-parting is adorned with sindoor, the sign of marriage that most Bengali Hindu women wear, and she is sent on her way to Kailash. This is symbolised by the visarjan or bhasan, the ceremonial immersion of the goddess’s image in the river: the image is taken in festive procession down to the river, and with drumbeats and dancing is lowered into the water.

Durga is Shakti, or female energy personified. She is the consort of the god Shiva, and the daughter of Haimavat, the Himalaya mountains, and of Maina. As Shakti she has two forms, one mild, the other fierce.

In her milder form she is Uma or light, Gauri, the brilliant or beautiful, Parvati, the one who comes from the mountains, Haimavati, the daughter of Haimavat, Jagat Mata, the mother of the world, and Bhavani, the wife of Shiva.

But it is in her fierce forms that she is especially worshipped. In her terrible form she is Durga, the inaccessible, Kali and Shyama, the black, Chandika, the fierce, Bhairavi, the wife of Shiva or Bhairav, and Chandi, the form in which she  destroys Mahishasur, the buffalo demon. She is therefore also called Mahishasuramardini, or ‘the slayer of the demon Mahish’.

Durga is portrayed as a beautiful but fierce woman, with ten arms. In each of her ten hands she carries a divine weapon, given to her by the gods themselves to help her in her battle against Mahishasur. Her steed is a lion, or sometimes a tiger.

The worship of Durga is a celebration of the victory of good over evil, a victory which is symbolised in the story of Durga and Mahishasura.

 Long ago, there lived an asura, or demon, called Mahishasura, so called because he could take on at will the form of a giant mahish or water-buffalo.

Mahishasura decided to ask the great god Brahma for a boon that would protect him from death. He meditated long and hard, and soon earned Brahma’s favour. Brahma, moved by the demon’s penance, agreed to grant him the boon he asked. Mahishasura, said Brahma, could not be killed by any man or god.

The demon, now secure against death, began to conquer the world. He defeated all men and began to rule over the earth. He was a cruel and tyrannical ruler, mercilessly killing all those who opposed him and subduing the rest to his will. He soon gained complete control over the earth, so that not one man was left with the courage to oppose him.

He then attacked heaven itself, and, the gods, powerless to kill him, were helpless. Mahishasura defeated the gods and took the throne of heaven for himself.

The frightened and despairing gods appealed to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva to help them. The three great gods, hearing of the cruelty and violence of Mahishasura, were filled with anger. Their anger came forth in a great burst of energy. Thunder and lightning filled the skies, and a great light dazzled the world. Men and gods fell to the ground in fear. This great energy coalesced into the form of a young and beautiful woman. This young woman was energy, or Shakti, personified. She was the goddess Durga.

The gods fell to their knees and worshipped the goddess, begging her to rid the universe of the demon Mahishasura.

To help her, the gods gave her their own divine weapons: Vishnu gave her his discus and Shiva his trident. Varuna, the god of the sea and the rivers, gave her his conchshell and a noose; Agni, the god of fire, gave her a flaming missile; and Pawan, the god of the winds, gave her fast-flying arrows. Indra, king of the gods, gave her his thunderbolt, and Airavat, his white elephant, gave her his bell. Yama, the god of death, gave her a rod, while Vishwakarma, the god of smiths, gave her a sharp-edged axe and bright armour. Haimavat, god of the mountains, gave her jewels to adorn herself, and a fierce lion to ride into battle as her steed.

Durga, blazing with light, rode into battle against Mahishasura. The demon, seeing Durga, realised that his end was near, for Brahma’s boon did not protect him against women. Wild with fury, he changed himself into a gigantic water buffalo. Durga’s lion attacked the buffalo and pinned it to the ground. Durga beheaded the buffalo, and from it emerged the demon in his original form. Durga pierced his chest with Shiva’s trident and killed him, thus freeing the earth and heaven from his cruelty and tyranny.

And therefore, because she rid the world of evil, the goddess Durga is, to this day, worshipped by all the gods in heaven and all mankind on earth.