Devi Mahatmya
The Devi Mahatmyam or Devi Mahatmya (Sanskrit: devīmāhātmyam, देवीमाहात्म्यम्), or "Glory of the Goddess") is a Hindu religious text describing the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. As part of the Markandeya Purana, it is one of the Puranas or secondary Hindu scriptures. It was composed in Sanskrit during 400-600 CE, with authorship attributed to the sage (Rishi) Markandeya.
Devi Mahatmyam is also known as the Durgā Saptashatī (दुर्गासप्तशती) or simply Saptashatī, Caṇḍī (चण्डी) or Caṇḍī Pāṭha (चण्डीपाठः): pāṭha – "reading" – refers to the act of ritual reading. The text contains 700 (saptashata; "seven hundred") verses, arranged into 13 chapters. By far one of the most important texts of Shaktism, the text has a central place in Shakta ritual.
Devi Mahatmyam is seen as an attempt to unify the Vedic male pantheon with the pre-existing mother goddess worship possibly dating to the 9th millennium BCE, and an attempt to define divinity as a shakti, which takes form of the female gender, and that pervades all beings and non-beings and yet is transcendental. The text synthesizes a number of pre-existing mother goddess mythological puranas into a single narrative. Also, there are links to aspects of Samkhya philosophy in the narrative.
