The Real Meaning of Goddess Durga Avatars

THE REAL MEANING OF Goddess DURGA

AVATARS

 INRODUCTION: Durga the divine power in this world, the mother to this entire world, she was praised by the lords and the kings and from all the living beings in this world. She is the ultimate source of power to this world and entire world runs in her hands. She had many avatars for the welfare and the goodness of the man kind but among all we worship the nine avatars mainly and called them as NAVADURGA’S and mostly worshipped during NAVARATHRI’S which starts in the mid of October every year. In this article you will able to know the details of all the avatars and the inner meaning of each avatar.

THE FIRST AVATAR THE BALA TRIPURA SUNDARI DEVI

This avatar is worshipped as the first goddesses during the occasion of navarathri and she is the goddesses who were placed on a chair and she is the abode of the three mothers of this world namely the Saraswathi, Lakshmi and the Parvathi. So worshipping the Bala tripura sundari is the same worshipping to those three goddesses and in this avatar the lord Durga blesses her devotees by giving them the Shakthi, Siri and the Gyanam.
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 THE SECOND AVATAR IS THE ANAPOORNA DEVI

In this avatar shakthi is worshipped as Anapoorna devi, the only avatar of lord  durga where she doesn’t carries any weapons in her hands expect a dish containing rice, this has an internal meaning that the mother who takes care of us and feed us, in the same way to this world she is the only mother who feeds her children with all the requirements which we wanted. In this avatar you can find lord Shiva comes as a beggar to Annapoorna devi for rice, this means that no matters whether he is a god or human anything is equal to her and in her view she treats everyone equally.

 THE THIRD AVATAR IS THE GAYATRI DEVI

This avatar is worshipped as the third avatar during navarathri and the Lord Durga is placed on a lotus with five faces with different colours, the five faces indicate the panchabuthas which means air, water, sky, land and fire. So this avatar says that all the essential requirements of the man are provided by her and she is the one who was called as “VEDA MATHA” and all the mantras are evolved from her and the only unique mantra for all the gods is the gayatri mantram which can be read as below mentioned.

“ om bur buvasuvaha tatsa vidhurvadenyam bargo devasyadhi mahi thiyo yona prachodayatuu.”


THE FOURTH AVATAR IS THE LALITHA DEVI

On this day the goddesses is worshiped as Lalitha devi, she was mainly worshiped by the Bhramins  since she is also called Shanti swaroopini and one important thing she is the queen of the “Sri Chakram” who sits in the centre of the yantram and to serve her Lord Shiva will be as her sitting chair and the dwarapalakas are like the four corners of the chair and the lakshmi and saraswathi are seated beside her to serve, she was also called as “Sri Lalitha Tripura Sundari devi” and the unique mantra to reach her is as follows.

“om sree matrae namahaa”



THE FIFTH AVATAR IS THE LAKSHMI DEVI

Next the goddesses is worshipped as Lakshmi devi, the goddesses who is responsible for the money, she is the one who was respected and worshiped by every man kind since in our daily life money is the first and most important thing. In this avatar durga devi is seated on a lotus carrying two lotus on the two upper hands and on the lower hands on one hand she carries a pot with money and the other hand giving protection to the world. She always be in the houses where women are worshiped as goddesses and where women are happy.



THE SIXTH AVATAR IS THE SARASWATHI DEVI

In this avatar the mother durga will be seated on the white swan and she carries veda mantras and musical instrument and japamaala. There are several reasons for her things in her hands, the japamala and the Vedas includes the different Vedas and she is responsible to give the memory power to the human beings to get those Vedas and the musical instrument says that without her blessings no art is possible, that is the reason why the musicians, artists, students etc …., do saraswathi puja during these occasions and one important thing lord Saraswathi avatar is worshipped on the saptami of navarathri which is on the chita nakshatra i.e the janma nakshatra of durga.

THE SEVENTH AVATAR IS THE DURGA DEVI

In this avatar mother goddesses is worshiped as Durga, since she killed an evil named durgae she was called as durga on that time, in this avatar mother is placed on a tiger with eight hands carrying different weapons on her hand, which has a meaning saying that she is the one who is responsible to give power to do any work, that is the reason many people do Ayuda puja during this day that means the weapons or the things which they use for their work are worshiped on this day. This avatar is worshiped on the eighth day of navarathri and was called as Durgasthami which means the eighth day of durga puja. To get her blessings one unique mantra is given below which is her dyanam mantra which means remembering her at once so go through it.

“chaturpujae chandrakala vatansae kuchonatae kunkuma raga shobitae,
Pundrakshu pakankusha pushpa baana hastae namastae jagadekamaatha,
Durga devata dyayami dyanam samarpayami”


THE EIGHTH AVATAR IS THE MAHISHASHURA MARDINI DEVI

The eigth avatar is the mahishashura mardini devi which is the most powerful, anger avatar of durga before saying this avatar I would like to tell you the story behind this. Once upon a time there was a rakshasha king named Mahishashura who got wished from Bhrama that no men can kill him and he doesn’t care of women. Due to having the wish from Bhrama he used to make all the gods and goddesses disturbed and occupied the heaven then all went to lord Vishnu and praised him then he suggested that no men in this world can kill him so we all give our powers and give rise to a female so that she can kill him, as suggested by the Vishnu all the gods and goddesses started giving their powers and then the mahashakthi was borned and kill the Mahishashura then she was called as Mahishashura mardini. In this way she was worshipped and this avatar has an internal meaning that the lord durga will kill our evil forces like anger, ego, selfishness and make us free from those forces.

On this day some people perform Kanya puja which means nine girls who had not reached the puberty stage were invited to their houses they were treated as the nine roopas of durga and they were seated and feed them with nine varieties of dishes.

THE NINTH AVATAR IS RAJARAJESWARI DEVI

This is the last avatar of durga during the navarathri occasions after the defeat of the mahishashura all the gods and goddesses celebrate the occasion as vijaya dasami and the goddesses is placed on a chair and was worshiped by all the gods and goddesses, since she was worshiped by many empires and kings she was called as Rajarajeswari.

So these are the nine avatars of durga, many people follow different traditions in following these puja vidhanams but to be frank it doesn’t matter the way you perfom it matters only how you perform with your inner soul. She doesn’t require a lot of flowers, jewelers ,ornaments etc.., she only requires a peace of your attention and your belief on her.

Since the Lord Indra used to worshiped her from the heaven she was called as Indrakilari kanakadurgama. There was a story for durga to be named as kanakadurgama i.e when she settled on the hills of vijayawada then mystery happened there i.e instead of water rain came with gold coins since from that time she was named as kanakadurga since in telugu gold can be called as kanakam since the durga who gave gold she was called like that from that time, and was worshipped by the world as their main devotees.