| This finds a
more intensive echo in Durga worship as well. Mother Durga is the Mahishamardani (the
slayer of the buffalo- demon), the Bhuvaneswari the crowned presiding deity of the
Universe indulging in charity and assurances. She is the Adya Shakti the primeval energy
that creates and in her worship we see the symbolical victory of Virtue over Sin. Every
Himachali home and every Himachali man or woman has a soft corner for the Devi, the
daughter of the Himalayan range. She is, they feel,
absolutely there own, daughter or mother head of the mankind. She has also many different
names and her icons differ. She is Uma, Durga, Parvati, Kali, Mahakali, Tripura-Sundari,
Chamunda and Lakshmi. The story of the defeat of Sin by Virtue by Mahishasur badh or
the destruction of the Mahishasura demon by the Devi or Durga is the theme of Durga Puja
celebrated over a week, throughout Himachal Pradesh.
Krishna Cult has also a deep impact. Krishna has been
idolized in his various manifestations, as a boy playing pranks Oil his mother, as a Young
romantic youth with his love dalliances with Radha and the Gopinis and as Krishna
revealing to Arjuna the Bhagavad Geeta. |
