Devi Mahatmyam

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Devi Mahatmyam or Devi Mahatmya is a Hindu text describing the victory of the goddess Durga over the demon Mahishasura. As part of the Markandeya Purana, it is one of the Puranas or secondary Hindu scriptures, and was composed in Sanskrit around c. 400-500 CE, with authorship attributed to the sage Markandeya (Rishi). Devi Mahatmyam is also known as the Durg Saptashat or simply Saptashat , Ca or Ca P ha - where p ha "reading" refers to the act of ritual reading. The text contains 700 (saptashata - "seven hundred") verses, arranged into 13 chapters. By far the most important text of Shaktism, the text has a central place in Shakta ritual. Devi Mahatmyam is seen as an attempt to unify the Vedic male pantheon with the pre-existing mother goddess cult possibly dating to the 9th millennium BCE, and an attempt to define divinity as a female principle. The text synthesizes a number of pre-existing Mother goddess myths of Aryan and non- Aryan origin, skillfully integrated into a single narrative.