श्रीदुर्गासप्तशती
Every citation against Durgā Saptaśatī
Every claim elsewhere on this site that stands on a verse of this text, graded by how well the passage actually carries it — including where a widely-kept practice or a popular telling turns out not to be what the text itself says.
66 citationsCustomary — the text does not say this
3A real, widely-kept practice or telling that this passage does not itself prescribe or narrate.
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The mantra for the Amāvasyā havan is the first Argalā verse, saluting Jayantī, Maṅgalā, Kālī and the rest.
The verse is the text's; the rule of offering it in havan every Amāvasyā is not.
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Verses used for the Saptaśatī nyāsa are never to be offered as āhuti in havan.
Neither the nyāsa rite (pūrvāṅga 8) nor the verses themselves (1.80, 4.24–25) forbid an āhuti; the rule is the speaker's own tradition.
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The Goddess should be worshipped at the meeting of the eighth and ninth tithis because Cāmuṇḍā appeared then.
7.27 gives only the name: because she brought Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, she will be known as Cāmuṇḍā. The chapter does not mention the Aṣṭamī–Navamī juncture.
Inferred from the text
1Drawn from the passage, though it doesn't say this outright.
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Ambikā, who came out of the sheath of Pārvatī's body, is sung as Kauśikī, the form that faces Śumbha and Niśumbha.
This verse only names Kauśikī; her part in the Śumbha–Niśumbha episode comes from the chapters that follow.
Stated in the text
62The passage says this in so many words.
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The kavaca's fruit-verse says whatever wish one thinks of, one surely obtains.
Using यं यं चिन्तयते कामं as a samput for a particular wish is the speaker's practice.
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The kavaca assigns a guarding goddess to each of the ten directions.
Using these lines for dig-bandhana is the speaker's practice; the viniyoga does call the direction-binding deities the kavaca's tattva.
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The kavaca assigns a goddess to each body part, Sarasvatī to the tongue among them.
Worshipping a limb's goddess to treat illness in that limb is the speaker's application.
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The kavaca asks Vārāhī to guard the lifespan.
Its use against accidents in a māraka daśā is the speaker's application.
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The Devī Kavaca lists afflicting beings, beginning with those born along with a person (सहजा) and those of the family, and says they vanish when the armour is held in the heart.
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The Caṇḍī Kavaca's viniyoga names Brahmā as its seer and Cāmuṇḍā as its deity.
The viniyoga names Brahmā alone; the three seers Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Rudra belong to the three episodes of the Saptaśatī (pūrvāṅga 8, viniyoga), not to the kavaca. That it is the greatest kavaca is the speaker's view.
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The kavaca's protection opens with a salute to the very fierce Goddess and then asks Aindrī to guard the east and the fire goddess the south-east.
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The Devī Kavaca says brahma-rākṣasas, vetālas, kūṣmāṇḍas, bhairavas and the like vanish at the sight of one who holds the armour in his heart.
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The kavaca asks Kaumārī to guard the teeth.
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The Devī Kavaca names the nine Durgās, from Śailaputrī to Siddhidātrī.
Japa of the passage for jyotiṣa, vāstu or tantra is the speaker's advice, not the text's.
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The kavaca asks Lalitā Devī to guard the heart.
The text says "hṛdaya"; heart disease is the speaker's reading.
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The Argalā Stotra asks the Goddess for a lovely wife, in tune with one's mind and of good family, who helps one cross the ocean of worldly life.
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The mantra the speaker gives, ॐ जयन्ती मङ्गला काली, is the opening of the Argalā Stotra's first verse.
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The Argalā asks the Goddess, whose feet are worshipped, as the giver of all good fortune.
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The Argalā asks for a pleasing wife who follows one's mind.
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देहि सौभाग्यमारोग्यं asks the Goddess for good fortune, health and the highest happiness.
The text sets no count; the open-ended anuṣṭhāna is the speaker's advice.
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The Argalā's first verse begins with Om and salutes the Goddess by eleven names, from Jayantī to Svadhā.
The rule that women and those without the sacred thread drop the Om is the speaker's; the verse itself is printed with Om.
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The जयन्ती मङ्गला काली salutation the listener recites 108 times is the first verse of the Argalā Stotra.
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The first Argalā verse salutes the Goddess by eleven names, the last of them Svadhā.
Tying Svadhā to the ancestors' satisfaction, and saying the verse needs no dīkṣā, are the speaker's own.
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The first Argalā verse is a string of eleven names of the Goddess, from Jayantī to Svadhā, ending in a salutation.
Permission to do its japa while walking is the speaker's own ruling.
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The verse the speaker prescribes for havan and japa is the first verse of the Argalā Stotra, जयन्ती मङ्गला काली.
Using it as the havan mantra when no other is known is the speaker's instruction, not the text's.
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The mantra the speaker pairs with the Śākambharī sādhana is the first verse of the Argalā Stotra, जयन्ती मङ्गला काली.
The pairing with the Śākambharī sādhana is the speaker's, not the text's.
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The first Argalā verse names the Goddess as Svadhā among her eleven names.
The verse names Svadhā; linking that form to the satisfaction of the ancestors is the speaker's reading.
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The first verse of the Argalā Stotra, जयन्ती मङ्गला काली, salutes the Goddess by eleven names.
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The Argalā Stotra asks the Goddess for a lovely wife, in tune with one's mind and of good family, who helps one cross the ocean of worldly life.
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The Argalā Stotra asks the Goddess for a lovely wife, in tune with one's mind and of good family, who helps one cross the ocean of worldly life.
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The Argalā asks for good fortune, health and the highest happiness.
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The Argalā asks her to bring welfare and the highest prosperity.
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Whoever unpins the hymn and recites it daily with clear utterance becomes perfected, an attendant of the Goddess, and a gandharva.
The speaker adds that he can roam the whole earth; the text's next verse speaks only of no fear wherever he goes.
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The Kīlaka says that on the dark fourteenth or eighth one gives and takes back, and that in this way Mahādeva pinned the hymn.
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The Kīlaka ties the unpinning to giving and taking back on the dark fourteenth or eighth.
The verse does not list what is given; offering house, goods and children in a servant's spirit is the speaker's reading.
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The Kīlaka's viniyoga names Mahāsarasvatī as its deity, the same deity the Saptaśatī's viniyoga gives the last episode.
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Whoever unpins it and recites it clearly every day becomes a siddha.
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The viniyoga of the Saptaśatī's three episodes names fire, wind and sun as their elements (अग्निवायुसूर्यास्तत्त्वानि).
The speaker says the Saptaśatī gives no tattva in its viniyoga; the viniyoga before the recitation does name them.
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The Saptaśatī's kara-nyāsa places खड्गिनी शूलिनी घोरा… on the thumbs as the first of its finger placements.
The nyāsa line runs from the second half of 1.80 into the first half of 1.81.
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शूलेन पाहि नो देवि… (4.24) is placed on the forefingers in the same nyāsa.
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प्राच्यां रक्ष प्रतीच्यां च… (4.25) is placed on the middle fingers in the same nyāsa.
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After "the merchant said", verse 21 has him introduce himself as Samādhi, born in a wealthy family.
Using the line for separate japa is the speaker's practice; the text only tells the story.
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In the first chapter, during the Madhu–Kaiṭabha episode, Brahmā praises Yoganidrā, the sleep of Viṣṇu, to wake him.
The text gives the hymn as Brahmā's praise; the name "Tantrokta Rātri Sūkta" is the tradition's.
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Verse 22 says his sons and wife, greedy for his wealth, drove him out and took his money.
That japa of this verse brings vairāgya is the speaker's use; the text does not say so.
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Mahāmāyā forcibly drags even the minds of the wise into delusion.
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The second chapter tells which god's tejas formed each part of the Goddess's body.
Its separate use in kuladevī rites is the speaker's practice.
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The battle with Mahiṣa's army is under way at verse 40, with weapons lighting up the quarters and Cikṣura leading the asuras.
The speaker guessed "around the 40th shloka"; the print agrees.
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From शस्त्रास्त्रैर्बहुधा मुक्तैः to the end of the chapter the Goddess destroys Mahiṣa's army.
The text tells a battle; its use for vidveṣaṇa among enemies is the speaker's tradition, not stated.
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Mahiṣāsura, in elephant form, drags the Goddess's lion with his trunk and trumpets, and she cuts off the trunk with her sword.
Read aloud only as a sample of the word-separated text.
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The Goddess, drinking wine, tells Mahiṣa to roar a moment longer, for once she kills him the gods will soon roar.
The speaker paraphrases it as "I shall drink your blood"; the verse speaks of wine and of the gods' roar.
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Four verses of the gods' hymn ask the Goddess to protect with spear, sword, bell and bow, in every direction, through her gentle and fierce forms and all her weapons.
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The verse शूलेन पाहि नो देवि asks the Goddess to protect with her spear, sword, bell and bowstring.
Using it as the sampuṭa of the Tantrokta Devī Sūktam is the speaker's practice, not stated in the text.
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The protective verse शूलेन पाहि नो देवि asks the Goddess to guard with spear, sword, bell and bowstring.
The speaker places it near the seventh adhyāya; in the text it is adhyāya 4, verse 24.
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After Mahiṣa is slain, Indra and the gods bow and praise the Goddess, whose form is the gathered power of all the gods.
Using these praises to install a mūrti at home is the speaker's prescription.
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The gods' hymn in the fifth chapter begins नमो देव्यै महादेव्यै शिवायै सततं नमः.
Its use for āvāhana is the speaker's practice.
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The first या देवी सर्वभूतेषु verse, naming her as Viṣṇumāyā, is verse 14.
The speaker says "up to the 13th shloka" before it; the print agrees. The tarpaṇa names are his tradition.
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Śumbha orders Dhūmralocana to bring the Goddess by force, dragging her by the hair.
Read aloud only as a sample of the word-separated text.
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Because she brought back Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, the Goddess is to be known as Cāmuṇḍā.
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The full verse सर्वमङ्गलमङ्गल्ये… नारायणि नमोऽस्तु ते is the one the pandit recited only half of.
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The Goddess foretells that she will be born of Yaśodā in Nanda's house and, dwelling on the Vindhya, destroy the two demons.
The kalpa-bheda explanation is the speaker's own.
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The Nārāyaṇī hymn hails the Goddess as wisdom and Sarasvatī (मेधे सरस्वति) and asks her to be kind.
The speaker recommends this verse for a child slow to speak; the verse itself says nothing of speech or children.
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After the demon king is slain, the gods led by Agni praise Kātyāyanī and beg her to be kind and protect the universe.
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The Goddess says she will be born to Yaśodā in Nanda's house and, dwelling on the Vindhya, destroy the two asuras.
Read aloud only as a sample of the word-separated text.
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Mahākālī, deity of the first carita, is described as ten-faced, ten-armed and ten-footed.
The speaker places this in the Saptaśatī's first carita; the verse is in the Vaikṛtika Rahasya appended to it.
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Worshipping Nandā with devotion brings the three worlds under the worshipper's control (वशीकुर्याज्जगत्त्रयम्).
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The Mūrti Rahasya opens with Nandā, to be born of Nanda, who when praised and worshipped with devotion brings the three worlds under control.
Identifying her with a hidden Vindhya pīṭha and with Kṛṣṇa's sister is the speaker's, not in this verse.
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