Whenever the oppression of the demons starts dominating the earth, whenever sages, saints, and celestial beings get victimized with the torture of the demons, then there is certainly a divine incarnation of supreme energy for the betterment of the world and suppression of the evil. In the same manner, goddess Bhagwati incarnated as Sri Katyayani for the sake of betterment of the world. She is the one who saved the entire universe from one of the greatest demons, Mahishasura by curbing his ego and destroying him along with his army. This divine form of goddess Durga is well known amongst the devotees in the name of Sri Katyayani. She grants fearlessness to the devotees and also blesses them readily by removing diseases, sorrows, obstacles, and guilt. Just by remembering her one attracts her divine blessings. As per the story found in the Durga Saptashati, for the betterment of devas, goddess manifested as Katyayani for saving them from evil demons. She manifested in the hermitage of sage Katyayana who worshiped the goddess as his daughter and hence she is known as Katyayani. She is the slayer of demons like mahisha and she is the manifestation of divine energies of Lord Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheshwara. The first ever mention of her worship is related to sage katyayana who achieved glory and liberation by the worship of goddess Katyayani. She made the sage famous by adopting his name as a blessing for his penance. Since then she was known as “Katyayani”. Her form is divine and she has four arms in which she holds various weapons. She holds a sword, lotus, fearlessness gesture, and blessing gesture. Goddess blesses one with successful life and also enhances his intellect and skills. She grants any desired fruits when asked with sincerity and purity. With her blessings, her devotees gain excellence in the respective fields to which they belong. They achieve greatest heights in their related areas.
Mythological Tale of goddess Sri Katyayani
For the betterment of the devotees, goddess Katyayani who is the form of Adi shakti manifested as the sixth form for removing the fears of the world due to the evil asuras. As per the legend, the first manifestation of this goddess for the welfare of celestial devas took place in the house of sage Katyayana. Sage accepted her as his daughter and worshiped her with devotion and hence she was known as “Kaatyaaayani”. In the ancient times when the world was suffering from the outrage of demon Mahishasura, the fruits of Vedic sacrifice were snatched from the devatas. All the celestial gods started thinking about some solution for ending this menace of demons and some way to establish righteousness. Finally, they decided to gather and invoke the primordial energy because none of the devas were able to win over this demon. This was because Mahishasur had a boon from the gods that he would be killed only by a female (feminine power) and hence male deities were not able to harm him. Because of pride and ego over his powers, the demon started misusing the power and tortured innocent beings. Gods gather and invoked a goddess from their own energies. She was known as Katyayani. With her divine powers, the goddess completed her mission by destroying mahisha demon on the final day of Navaratri. As per another ancient tale, a sage named Katyayana did heavy penance and asked for a great daughter as a boon as a result, goddess Katyayani took incarnation in his house and blessed him for his penance and rescued the world from the fear and darkness of demons.
