Chapter 6

Chamunda

Kali Becomes Chamunda

The ashes of Dhumralochana

Dhumralochana arrived with an army of sixty thousand asuras.

Dhumralochana threatened to drag her away by the hair. Kaushiki replied that if he believed he could take her by force, there was little she could say to stop him. Then he charged.

Kaushiki uttered a single sound — "hum" — and Dhumralochana was reduced to ash where he stood. Then her lion cut through the rest of the army.

Chanda and Munda

Shumbha now sent Chanda and Munda with a large army.

They reached the Himalayas and found Kaushiki seated alone upon her lion, smiling.

They attacked.

Kali from the brow

Kaushiki's face darkened with rage. From her furrowed brow burst a terrifying goddess.

She was gaunt, clad in an animal skin, with a garland of severed heads at her throat and a *khatvanga* in her hand. Her mouth gaped open and her tongue hung out.

She gave a roar that shook the sky.

Kali tears through the army

Kali hurled herself into the asura army.

She seized elephants, chariots, horses and riders alike, crushing them between her jaws. She struck down the great warriors with her *khatvanga* and tore through the rest of the army.

Chanda and Munda watched as their forces collapsed before her.

Two heads

Chanda stepped forward. Kali caught him by the hair and cut off his head with her sword.

Munda ran. His head fell the same way.

Kali carried both heads to Kaushiki. "Here are Chanda and Munda — two great beasts, my offering. Now kill Shumbha and Nishumbha yourself."

The name Chamunda

Kaushiki was pleased.

"You have brought me Chanda and Munda," she said. "So in the world your name will be Chamunda."

Their two names, Chanda and Munda, were joined in hers: Chamunda.

Note: This episode is in the seventh chapter of the Devi Mahatmya. The name Chamunda comes from there — Chanda plus Munda. Here Kali is a fierce power that emerges from the wrath of Kaushiki, also called Ambika; after killing Chanda and Munda she is given the name Chamunda. In the later Tantric traditions this same form — thin, bony, tied to the cremation ground — develops its own independent and very extensive worship.

Source: from several texts, Chamunda

Now — how much stayed with you?

What happened?

How did Dhumralochana meet his end?

  • Kaushiki made a single sound
  • Kali cut off his head
  • The gods' army surrounded and killed him
  • He took fright, fled, and fell
Read the whole story — One sound, and ash

Dhumralochana's name means "smoke-eyed", and his end is smoke-like too — one "hum" and he is ash.

This is the same Goddess who is the power of the word (chapter 1, Vak). Here a single seed-sound finishes an entire general.

The army was still left to the lion — she did not have to raise a hand. It is the first and most restrained form of her fierceness. The real fierceness comes in the next scene.

Who am I?

I came out when Kaushiki's face went black with anger — out of a crease in her forehead. I am gaunt, I wear a tiger skin, a garland of severed heads hangs at my throat, and my tongue hangs out. Who am I?

  • Kaushiki, in another form
  • Parvati
  • Durga
  • Kali
Read the whole story — The goddess from a forehead

In the Devi Mahatmya, Kali comes out more than once and in more than one way — in chapter 5 from Parvati turning black, in chapter 7 from Kaushiki's forehead.

Coming from the crease of the brow is particular: anger shows on the forehead first, and it is there that it takes a body.

Every mark of Kali — the tiger skin, the garland of heads, the hanging tongue, the skull-staff — is fixed here, and stays in every image of her after.

Who said it?

"You have brought me Chanda and Munda. So in the world your name will be Chamunda." — who said this, and to whom?

  • Kaushiki (Ambika), to Kali
  • Shiva, to Kali
  • The gods, to Kali
  • Shumbha, to Chanda and Munda
Read the whole story — An offering, and a name

This is the Devi Mahatmya's own explanation of the name "Chamunda", and it is very direct: Chanda plus Munda.

The name is given not to Kali but to what she did — "she who brought Chanda and Munda". A goddess's name is often the memory of an event, the way Hanuman's is in Shiv-Mahima's neighbouring story.

Chamunda is later counted among the Seven Mothers (chapter 9), and there too she is the fiercest, the one tied to the cremation ground.

Fact

How did Kali finish Chanda and Munda's army?

  • By beating them with the skull-staff alone
  • By burning them with fire alone
  • By picking up elephants, chariots, horses and riders, putting them in her mouth, chewing and crushing them
  • By binding them in a noose and giving them to the lion
Read the whole story — A goddess who eats

Kali's slaughter in the Devi Mahatmya is a swallowing — she chews the army, grinds the chariots between her teeth.

The image startles, and is meant to: Durga kills with a trident, Kali eats. One fierceness is restrained, the other open.

In the Raktabija chapter that same appetite becomes the solution — she drinks his blood before it can land.

Who said it?

"Go back to your master." — who said this, and to whom?

  • Kali, to Chanda
  • Kaushiki, to Dhumralochana
  • Kaushiki, to Shumbha's messenger
  • The gods, to Dhumralochana
Read the whole story — A warning nobody took

In the Devi Mahatmya the Goddess gives every general a chance to turn back first. Not one takes it.

This is deliberate: the story does not want to make her the aggressor. Every time, the first blow is the asura's.

Dhumralochana's refusal is part of the same pride as Shumbha's — and that pride is what finally brings Shumbha himself onto the field.

Riddle

We were the ones who called Kaushiki a jewel and turned our master's eye toward her. Then we were the ones sent to seize her. A black goddess took our heads — and because of those heads, her fiercest form is known by our names. Who are we?

  • Shumbha and Nishumbha
  • Madhu and Kaitabha
  • Chanda and Munda
  • Raktabija and his companion
Read the whole story — The ones who gave a name without knowing it

Chanda and Munda are small characters — two servants. Yet one of the Goddess's great names is made from theirs.

There is an irony in it: the two who took Kaushiki for a thing, a jewel, ended as the two heads that identify her most terrifying form.

It is a pattern in Devi-Charit — small characters and small words leave the root of a large name behind, like the sage Ambhrina in chapter 1.

Put it in order

Which is the correct order of events?

  • Chanda and Munda's army → Dhumralochana → Kali appears → the name Chamunda
  • Kali appears → Dhumralochana turned to ash → Chanda and Munda → the two heads
  • Dhumralochana arrives with his army and is burned to ash by "hum" → Shumbha sends Chanda and Munda → at their attack Kali breaks out of Kaushiki's forehead → Kali's slaughter of the army → Chanda's and Munda's heads are cut off → Kali offers the two heads and is given the name Chamunda
  • The name Chamunda → Kali's slaughter → Chanda and Munda → Dhumralochana
Read the whole story — Three generals, one name

Three asura generals come one at a time through this chapter — Dhumralochana, then Chanda, then Munda — and all three fall.

The turn in the middle is Kali breaking out of the forehead — where the story swings from Kaushiki's victory to Kali's fierceness.

The chapter ends on the name, not on the next battle — because the greatest asura, Raktabija, is in the next chapter.

The texts disagree

How many times, and in how many ways, does Kali originate in the Devi Mahatmya?

  • Only once
  • More than once
  • Kali has no origin story; she has always existed
  • Every time, she comes out of Vishnu
Read the whole story — One goddess, several births

Kali has no single original story — within the Devi Mahatmya alone she appears twice, in two different ways.

Outside it there are more: in the Shiva Purana's Daruka story she is made from the poison in Shiva's throat; in some versions from his third eye.

What it means is that Kali is a temperament — fierceness, destruction — that can take a body out of any god's or goddess's anger. Devi-Charit treats this as a pattern rather than a contradiction.

Later tradition

Chamunda's temple stands on which hill, whose name is tied to a city's?

  • The Chamundi hill near Mysore
  • The Vaishno Devi hill at Katra
  • Mount Girnar, Junagadh
  • A hill in the Aravallis
Read the whole story — One hill, two stories together

On Mysore's Chamundi hill the goddess is called Chamundeshwari, and a large image of Mahishasura stands there too — so the killing of Mahisha and the story of Chamunda meet in one place.

Mysore's Dussehra, the Vijayadashami festival, is dedicated to this goddess and is among the largest such processions in India.

So the two separate stories of chapters 4 and 6 join on one hill, in one festival — which is a ground-level answer to the "one or many" question.

Why is that?

Why does the Devi Mahatmya give every asura general a chance to turn back first?

  • Because the Goddess needs time to prepare each time
  • Because the rules of war require a warning first
  • Because the gods wanted the asuras spared
  • So that the story never makes the Goddess the aggressor
Read the whole story — The first blow is always the asura's

"Go back" to Dhumralochana, a smile for Chanda and Munda, "beat me first" to Shumbha's messenger — every time, she waits.

It does not mean she is weak — it means the story keeps her fierceness justified. She destroys, but she does not begin.

It resembles Shiv-Mahima, where Shiva's anger also always follows somebody's first insult — Daksha's, or Kama's arrow.