Durga

Durga is the goddess made when the gods could not win. Mahishasura had a boon that no man and no god could kill him, so the gods put their energies together and what came out was a woman, armed by each of them with his own weapon, riding a lion. The loophole is the whole theology: she is not a consort borrowed for the occasion but the combined power of everybody, in a form none of them had thought of. Bengal reads her second meaning as well, as Parvati coming home to her parents for four days in the autumn, which is why the immersion feels like a daughter leaving rather than a victory parade ending.

Eight, ten or eighteen armed, each hand holding a weapon given by a different god, riding a lion or a tiger, with the buffalo demon under her foot and her trident through him. Her face in the act of killing is calm, which the sculptors are deliberate about. In the Bengal tableau she stands with Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesha and Kartik, as a mother with her children.

Held to be Parvati in her warrior form, and therefore wife of Siva, though the Devi Mahatmya introduces her as prior to and greater than the gods who made her. Bengal gives her the four children of the tableau. Her lion is her own, not borrowed.

The nine nights of Navaratri are hers, twice a year, in Chaitra and in Ashwin. The Devi Mahatmya, seven hundred verses, is read through them. The ghatasthapana sets a pot of water with barley sown round it on the first day and the shoots are cut on the tenth. Red is her colour, the hibiscus her flower, and Tuesday and Friday her days.

Bengal

The four days of Durga Puja are the year itself: the pandals, the dhak, the sandhi puja, the sindoor khela on Dashami and the immersion with the cry that she come again next year.

Tamil Nadu

Kept as part of Navaratri with the golu, the nine steps of dolls, and the three sets of three nights given to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati in turn.

North India

The nine nights are kept as a fast on fruit and kuttu flour, with the Ramlila running beside them and the kanya pujan on Ashtami.

Gujarat

The nine nights are danced, garba round the lamp in the earthen pot and dandiya after, which is the largest participatory festival in the state.

Kashmir

Kheer Bhavani at Tulmulla is the Kashmiri Pandit shrine, where the colour of the spring water is read as an omen for the year.

• Navaratri begins
• Sharad Navratri begins
• Chaitra Navratri begins · Vikram Samvat new year
• Durga Puja begins · Maha Shashthi
• Durga Ashtami · Maha Ashtami
• Maha Navami
• Maha Saptami
• Maha Shashthi · Bodhon
• Maha Navami
• Vijayadashami · Dussehra
• Vijayadasami

• Kanaka Durga Temple, Indrakeeladri Vijayawada, NTR district, Andhra Pradesh
• Mata Vaishno Devi Bhawan, Katra Katra, Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir
• Chamunda Nandikeshwar Dham Palampur, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh
• Vindhyavasini Devi Temple Vindhyachal, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh
• Jwalamukhi Devi Temple Jwalamukhi, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh

• Om Dum Durgayai Namah
• Ayi Giri Nandini (Mahishasura Mardini)
• Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu
• Argala stotram: Jayanti Mangala Kali
• Katyayani Mahamaye