Chapter 11

Lalita and Bhandasura

A demon from ash, a goddess from fire

Bhandasura from the ashes

Shiva's third eye had burned Kama to ashes.

From those ashes, one of Shiva's attendants shaped a figure. When Shiva's gaze fell on it, the figure came to life as a mighty man.

Chitrakarma taught him the Shatarudriya mantra and told him to perform austerities. When the austerities were done, Shiva appeared. The figure asked for a boon: that half the strength of anyone who faced him in battle should pass into him, and that his enemies' weapons could not bind him. Shiva granted it, and also blessed him to rule for sixty thousand years.

Brahma exclaimed "Bhanda!" as a rebuke, and the name stayed with him. Bhanda founded the city of Shunyaka and brought the three worlds under his power.

Lalita from the sacrifice

At Mahashambhu's direction, the gods performed a great sacrifice and finally offered themselves into its fire.

From *chidagni*, the fire of consciousness, appeared a red, four-armed goddess. She carried a sugarcane bow, flower-arrows, a noose and a goad.

She was Lalita Tripurasundari, the supremely beautiful. She took Kameshvara, a form of Shiva, as her consort and ruled from Shripura.

The chariot of the Shri Chakra

Lalita rode to war in the Chakraraja, a vast chariot patterned on the Shri Chakra — nine interlocking triangles around a central point, the sacred diagram at the heart of the Shrividya tradition.

Her companions included Dandanatha, or Varahi, who commanded her army, and Mantrini, or Shyamala, who served as her minister.

Opposite her stood Bhanda's army, and his brothers Vishukra and Vishanga.

Ganesha from a smile

Vishukra devised a device — the Jayavighna yantra — that spread discord and sloth through Lalita's army.

Lalita looked towards Kameshvara and smiled. From her smile Ganesha appeared and shattered the device.

This tradition gives Ganesha a different birth. In *Shiv-Mahima*, Parvati fashions him from paste taken from her body; here he arises from Lalita's smile as the remover of obstacles.

The ten avatars from her fingernails

Bhanda used his maya to raise up forms like Madhu and Kaitabha, Raktabija and other old demons. Durga and the other powers that came forth from Lalita destroyed them.

Then Bhanda brought forth Somaka and other demons. In answer, from the nails of Lalita's hands came Vishnu's ten avatars — from Matsya to Kalki — and they defeated those demons.

Kama restored

At last Lalita released the Mahakameshvarastra. Bhandasura and his city were reduced to ash.

The gods then pleaded that the world was incomplete without love. Lalita restored Kama to life, reunited him with Rati and returned the power of desire to the world.

The same goddess who carried a sugarcane bow and flower-arrows — the symbols of desire — restored to life the Kama whom Shiva's third eye had burned.

Note: This story is in the Lalitopakhyana, which is part of the Brahmanda Purana. It is a major source of the Shrividya tradition, separate from the narrative stream of the Devi Mahatmya and the Devi Bhagavata. In this story it is Shiva who grants Bhandasura his boon; his name comes from Brahma's exclamation, and his city is Shunyaka. Lalita is linked with Shodashi and Bhuvaneshvari among the ten Mahavidyas. Shrividya is a complex Tantric worship still living in South India. Mantrini, that is Shyamala, is the minister and Dandanatha, that is Varahi, the commander — this pairing also appears in the Lalita Sahasranama. The Mahakameshvarastra is in the original text.

Source: from several texts, Lalita and Bhandasura

Now — how much stayed with you?

Whose son?

What was Bhandasura made from, and how did he get his name?

  • From the line of Hiranyakashipu; his name from his father
  • From Mahisha's ashes; his name from "Mahisha-bhanda"
  • From the sacrificial fire; his name from Agni
  • From the ashes of Kama, burned by Shiva's third eye; his name from Brahma's exclamation "bhanda! bhanda!", bravo
Read the whole story — An asura made out of burnt love

Bhandasura's whole identity is here: he is made of burnt desire, and so under his rule love and sap dry out of the world.

It connects straight to chapter 5 of Shiv-Mahima, where Kama was burned. There the story was Shiva's; here the asura who rose from those ashes becomes the Goddess's story.

"Bhanda" means bravo, well done — a word out of Brahma's mouth that became an asura's name. As "Hanuman" came from a broken jaw in Hanuman-Gatha, or "Ravana" from a scream.

What happened?

What came of the gods' great sacrifice?

  • Lalita Tripura Sundari rose out of the sacrificial fire
  • Durga rose from it, on a lion
  • Kama came back to life from it
  • The sacrifice failed and the gods went home
Read the whole story — Beauty out of a fire

Lalita's birth is unlike the other goddesses' in Devi-Charit: Durga from anger, Kaushiki from a sheath, Kali from a forehead — Lalita from the fire of a sacrifice.

And her form is different too: not fierce but red and beautiful; her weapons soft — sugarcane, flowers, a noose, a goad.

This is the Shrividya tradition's own theology: the supreme power is not destruction but beauty and desire — and that same desire is also a weapon.

Who am I?

I am a geometric figure — a lattice of nine triangles with a point at the centre. In tantra I am the diagram through which Lalita is worshipped. But in the war with Bhandasura I became a chariot, and Lalita rode me. What am I?

  • The swastika
  • Om
  • The Shri Chakra, the Shri Yantra
  • The Sudarshana chakra
Read the whole story — A diagram that became a chariot

The Shri Chakra is the centre of the Shrividya tradition — Lalita is worshipped through this geometry more than through an image.

In the Lalitopakhyana the diagram becomes an enormous chariot — the figure the Goddess dwells in is also the thing that carries her.

It is unlike the Devi Mahatmya's lion: Durga's mount is an animal, Lalita's is a geometry.

Who said it?

"A world without love is not whole." — who made this plea after Bhandasura's death, and what did Lalita do?

  • Bhandasura, as he died
  • The gods, to Lalita
  • Rati, to Shiva
  • Narada, to Brahma
Read the whole story — Not by killing, but by returning

This is the great turn of Lalita's story: Bhanda was made from burnt desire, and Lalita's weapon is desire too — the sugarcane bow.

But she does not finish desire off. She kills Bhanda and then returns desire, and so restores the balance.

That is the essence of Shrividya: not to suppress desire but to point it rightly. Lalita is Kameshvari — the mistress of desire, not its enemy.

Fact

Who broke Bhandasura's Jayavighna yantra, which spread discord and sloth, and how did he appear?

  • Varahi, as commander
  • The ten avatars of Vishnu
  • Ganesha
  • Kama, having come back to life
Read the whole story — A remover of obstacles born from a smile

This is a lesser-known birth of Ganesha: in Shiv-Mahima he is made from Parvati's body-paste; here from Lalita's smile.

What it means is that "removing obstacles" is a power that comes from inside the Goddess — from a smile, that is, without anger and without a weapon.

In the Shrividya tradition the relation between Ganesha and Lalita is a particular one, and many Lalita temples give Ganesha his own worship.

Riddle

I rose from the fire of a sacrifice. My colour is red, my bow is sugarcane, my arrows are flowers. The asura I fought was made of burnt love — and having won, I brought love back to life. Who am I?

  • Durga
  • Kali
  • Saraswati
  • Lalita Tripura Sundari, Kameshvari
Read the whole story — Desire, which is also a weapon

Every sign of Lalita's is Kama's — the sugarcane bow, the flower arrows. The difference is that Kama used them to raise desire in the mind; Lalita wins a war with them.

This is the central idea of Shrividya: the same desire that binds can also free — the difference is direction.

Which is why she is called Tripura Sundari, the beauty of the three worlds — and she is among the Mahavidyas too (chapter 10, as Shodashi).

Put it in order

Which is the correct order of events?

  • Lalita from the sacrifice → Kama burned → Bhanda born → Bhanda killed
  • Bhanda killed → the sacrifice → Lalita → the Shri Chakra chariot
  • Lalita reviving Kama → Bhanda killed → Ganesha → ten avatars from her fingernails
  • Kama burned by Shiva's third eye → Bhanda made from the ashes, and his boon → love drying out of the world → the gods' great sacrifice and Lalita rising from it → the war on the Shri Chakra chariot → Ganesha from her smile breaking the obstacle-device → the ten avatars from her fingernails → Bhanda killed by the Kameshvara weapon → Lalita bringing Kama back to life
Read the whole story — From ash to sap

The shape of this chapter is a circle: Kama burns at the start, and Kama is alive again at the end.

In between stands an asura who is the absence of love, and a goddess who is its mistress.

Which is why the chapter feels unlike the Devi Mahatmya ones: there victory comes from destruction, here from balance.

The texts disagree

Where does the Lalita and Bhandasura story come from, and how is it a different tradition from the Devi Mahatmya?

  • It is the Devi Mahatmya's twelfth chapter
  • It is from the "Lalitopakhyana" of the Brahmanda Purana, and belongs to a separate Shakta tantric stream called Shrividya or Shrikula
  • It belongs to Bengal's Kali tradition
  • It is from the Rig Veda
Read the whole story — Two Shakta theologies, side by side

The Devi Mahatmya's goddess is a goddess of war — Durga, Kali, Chamunda. Lalita's tradition, Shrividya, is one of beauty and diagram — the Shri Chakra, the Lalita Sahasranama.

Both hold "one Mahadevi, many forms", but each puts a different form foremost: one Durga, the other Lalita.

Devi-Charit keeps both in one gatha, to show that the Shakta tradition is not itself one thing but several streams.

Later tradition

What are the three largest elements of Lalita's worship?

  • The lion, the trident and the buffalo
  • The veena, the swan and the book
  • The Shri Chakra as her yantra, the Lalita Sahasranama, her thousand names, and Kamakshi of Kanchi, the greatest Lalita site in the south
  • The lotus, the owl and gold coins
Read the whole story — A diagram, a thousand names, and a temple

Lalita's worship is not centred on an image but on the Shri Chakra. The practitioner establishes the Goddess in the geometry of the diagram.

The Lalita Sahasranama, her thousand names, is the most widely recited hymn of the Shakta tradition, and it is in the Brahmanda Purana as well.

Kamakshi of Kanchipuram is held to be a form of Lalita, and the connection to Shankaracharya's tradition is deep — so Shrividya is not only tantra but is joined to mainstream Vedanta too.

Who am I?

In Shiv-Mahima I was born not from Shiva but from Parvati's body-paste; here I was born from Lalita's smile. My work is one thing only — to remove obstacles. Who am I?

  • Ganesha
  • Kartikeya
  • Virabhadra
  • Hanuman
Read the whole story — One god, several births

Ganesha has several birth stories: from Parvati's body-paste in Shiv-Mahima; from Shani's glance in the Brahmavaivarta; and here from Lalita's smile.

In every version the outcome is the same — the god who removes obstacles — but the source differs: sometimes Parvati, sometimes Lalita, which is to say always the Goddess.

The "one or many" question applies to Ganesha too: is he the son of Shiva and Parvati, or a form of the Goddess's power? The tradition says both.