Naturally there was great embarrassment about such an independent feminine energy running around (one of Mahisha's arguments, poor fellow, was that a woman should not be left unprotected like this, it was not decent) and spreading subversive thoughts amongst her devotees, and the mythologizers got busy and married her off to Shiva. Then they wrote many stories which show her to be the manifestation of Parvati, Shiva's wife. Durga is Parvati's divine wrath which has taken physical shape. Even as they were making up the myth, they could not avoid her essentially independent nature. In parts of the country she is supposed to be the mother of a divine family with Skanda, Ganesha, Laxmi and Sarasvati being her children. This is an amazing example of popular feeling as to what is right and proper, triumphing over the texts itself. None of these deities are in any way connected to Durga actually, from the evidence of the texts, be they mythology or scripture. However, a goddess could not be childless so she had better have the best children possible.

The old Durga, even with her Ishtar lineage, seems to have been a fertility goddess, closely connected with the harvests and wild vegetation. There are religious ceremonies even today practiced, which ask her to hasten the growth of crops and the sprouting of the seeds. She was obviously accepted first by the tribal and semi nomadic peoples. Hence her depicted love for forests, she is known as Vanapriya, she who loves forests. She also receives blood offerings, in the typical renewal and nourishment ritual so well known to all ancient cultures. That, however, has become a problem today, as the faith has become very uncomfortable with such beliefs. It does not help that the great battle queen inflames herself for combat by drinking wine till her eyes are red, and sometimes when that is not enough, she quaffs blood as being the more intoxicating beverage. Ancient India was used to both sexes being very sociable drinkers indeed, as all the old texts and epics show again and again. It is only nowadays that this kind of behavior seems inexplicable. Durga actually has a very long hymn addressed to her where she is termed as mamasam ishta, raktha priya - she who likes meat and loves blood!

This is as far removed from the Mahadevi as is humanly possible. The Mahadevi is Durga, with all her wildness removed. However, it is not to be supposed that Durga is a chaotic, undisciplined force of nature. She is so terrifying precisely because she is always in control; there is something cool and deliberate about her that freezes the blood. Even her attahasam, the cosmic bellow of laughter that shakes the earth, seems to be derisive mockery of the pretensions of evil, rather than the outburst of rage it would have been in Kali's case. In fact there is something singularly chilling, a Himalayan coldness, in the descriptions of the manner she wipes the floor with demons. Wave after wave of asuras and rakshasas are annihilated by her and then she waits with this menacing calm for the next lot to rush up on her and meet their doom. Kali would have been chasing them round the four corners of the earth as soon as she had killed a few. The battle fury is always ready to break out in her, but she never loses control, it never becomes the blood lust that motivates Kali's dance of destruction. It is impossible for Durga to get carried away, and it is this superhuman control of hers that has rendered her 'The Inaccessible'.

In some myths Durga is the skin of Parvati, which slips off and fights the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha, a pair of brothers who did not know the old saying about united they stand and divided, by desiring the same woman, they fall. Sometimes she is supposed to create helpers to fight for her, Kali being the most famous. As Kali is an old tantrik deity, the assimilative trend here is only too visible. In other versions she is supposed to have created the Saptamatrikas, the Seven Mothers, who are originally Yaksha gods! However it is worth noting that Durga never needs male help, like Ishtar. She is independent of all direct male influence, and she fights only male demons. In the myth of her origin, what is most interesting and crucial is not that she is presented as the Shakti, the power behind the male god, but that she takes their powers upon herself so that she can save the universe.

This subsuming and in a sense takeover of the formal powers of all creation is what has led the famous hymn to Durga to extol her as the composite of all the elements. Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu, Shakti rupena samsthitha, "Oh Devi who is the amalgam of all the elements, whose form is that of strength." This indicates her essential independence of all that is, as she is made of the very stuff of the universe.

However, amongst her powers and attributes are listed not just positive ones like wisdom, and peace but also she whose form is hunger, sleep and thirst. Durga therefore is only too familiar with the Shadow of the Universe. Durga is thus an impossible reconciliation of opposites, the aspect of divinity that will always remain out of reach of the comprehension of man. She is the divine life force that may not be understood but only accepted.