Navratri or The nine night festival is celebrated with great excitement and great pump in whole of the country. Basically, in simple words, if we divide Navratri in two parts, the first word NAVA means 9 and second word RATRI means night. Maa Durga is known for her nine forms and is worshipped by her devotees across the world. The 9 day period starts from the day of shukla paksha to the ninth day of Ashwin. Each goddess or nine forms of Durga are manifested each day separately. All these 9 forms of Durga is part of goddess Parvati.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay 

Let's know about each goddesses individually:

1. GODDESS SHAILPUTRI

She is the daughter of Mount Shailraj Himalaya. In her previous birth she was the daughter of king Daksha. Once Daksha had organized a big yagya without inviting Lord Shiva in which Mata reached there and started arguing for not inviting lord Shiva. Then Daksha insulted Lord Shiva and sati couldn't bear the humiliations and burns herself in the fire of yagya. The importance and powers of Maa are infinite.

2. GODDESS BRAHMACHARINI

She is considered to be the goddess of penance and power. In the previous birth, Mata was born as a daughter in the house of Himalayas. She had done a lot of penance to get lord Shiva as her husband. That is why she is called as brahmacharini. 

3. GODDESS CHANDRAGHANTA 

The popular incarnation of Mata is also worshipped in Vaishno Devi temple. She is the one who killed mahishasura. The story behind this is that in ancient time there was a very long war between the gods and the asuras, in which the lord of demons was mahishasura and the lord of the gods was Indra. After the war he conquered the gods and took the throne of Indra. Seeing this all the gods got upset and they went to Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. An energy awakened from the anger of the 3 gods and started spreading in all directions then a goddess incarnated there. Then all the gods gave their weapons to Mata chandraghanta and she killed all the demons and liberated all the deities from the demons.

4. GODDESS KUSHMANDA

She is  the creator of the universe through her mild smile. It is said that when there was no creation of Universe and was Darkness all around then the Mata had created the universe with her godly humor, hence she is called the Adiswaroopa or Adishakti of the universe.

5. GODDESS SKANDMATA 

Being the mother of Skanda Kumar Karthikey she is also known as skandmata. In her deity, lord Kumar is seated in her lap in the form of a child. 

6. GODDESS KATYAYANI

Sage katyayan had done severe penance of mother Adishakti, then pleased with sage penance she was born as a daughter in his house. Hence she is known by Mata katyayani. She is also called as mahishasuramardini.

7. GODDESS KAALRATRI

We worship Mata kaalratri on the seventh day of Navratri. She is the destroyer of the wicked. In ancient time, there was a demon raktabeej. He had troubled the deities and the public. His specialty was that whenever a drop of his blood fell on the earth, a new form exactly like him born. Then all the deities went to Lord Shiva and he knew that only goddess Parvati has the power to finish him. He then requested the goddess and after this the Maa herself did the power work. Mata Parvati's face was started looking terrifyingly scary. Then when she was killing raktabeej with 1 hand, an earthen pot in the other hand would catch it from the scabbard and would not allow the blood to fall on the ground. In this way, this form of Maa Parvati, who killed raktabeej was called kaalratri.

8. GODDESS MAHAGAURI

It is said that goddess did a severe penance to get Lord Shiva as her husband, after which her whole body got covered with mud. Eventually Lord Shiva pleased with goddess worship and blessed her to be his wife. Then Lord Shiva washed her body with Gangajal. After which the body of Mata Gauri became bright like electricity. That is why she was named MahaGauri.

9. GODDESS SIDDHIDATRI

She is considered as the goddess of accomplishment and salvation. It is believe that Lord Shiva had attained eight siddhis by doing rigorous penance of Maa. Along with, by the grace of Maa, half the body of Lord Shiv Ji was turned in the form of Goddess and later he was called as Ardhanarishwar. This new form of Maa Parvati is a very powerful form. 

I hope you all will like this article of mine. And I hope that you all got some knowledge from this article of mine.

JAI MATA DI

.   .   .

Discus