Thus it is written in the puranas of the
Amara Havana:
The asura Mahishasura, blessed for the purity of his piety, the many austerities of his existence, and his unfailing adherence to the dharma of his kind, could be neither conquered nor slain by the hand of any god or man. The terror of the three worlds, he conquered Heaven and drove forth all the gods, whose weapons were powerless against him, and sewed chaos and destruction upon the helpless Earth. In secret, the mightiest of the gods came together upon the banks of the holiest of waters and offered to the universe their prayer: that the Great Goddess should send forth a savior in her own form, a warrior goddess mightier than any man or god, whose strength could save Heaven and Earth from ruin at the hands of the demon none of them could slay. Their prayer was heard, and from the waters she came with ten arms to bear the weapons that were powerful in her hands, and three eyes to see all that had befallen the realms of Heaven and Earth and the Underworld, and a tongue that wished to taste the blood of demons.
The battle between the mighty warrior goddess and the pious demon shook the Heavens and the Earth, and raged from the sea to the sky, from the mountains to the plains, and across the length and breadth of the three worlds. For nine days and nine nights they fought with one another, neither able to claim victory, and the blood of the goddess and the demon rained down upon the Earth and the creatures that dwelt upon it, transfiguring all that it touched in the demon-haunted world. The men and women upon whom the goddess’s blood fell suffered from its touch, first with a terrible heat that burnt away their mortal lives. Then a terrible cold gripped their souls, and when they rose from where they were stricken, they were neither human, nor god, nor demon, but some part of all. A fierce hunger was upon them, a desire to sup upon the blood of the asuras who, following Mahishasura, had risen from the dark places of the world to slake their lusts upon the people of the Earth while the gods could do naught to aid or comfort those who cried out to them for succor. And so, since the gods were helpless, the new-born warriors, in whose veins ran the blood of both gods and demons, took up their arms for the first time to slay the despoilers of their world.
Thus it is written:
On the tenth day, the goddess was victorious. Her blade parted the hideous head of Mahishasura from his shoulders and the asura armies that the fiend had drawn into his service fell back in horror and dismay, to be pursued and driven back into the darkness from whence they had come. Shining with the gentle light of the newest of crescent moons, the goddess descended into the broken, ravaged world and surveyed it with sorrow in her heart. As the last light of the day died, the warriors who wore her blood as their mantle came forth from the darkness in which they had fought and suffered and knelt in supplication at the goddess’s feet, to beg her mercy and her blessing. To them, she extended her hand and, laying it upon their brows, she found that she could not take back the change that had transfigured them — but she could acknowledge the value of what they had become, and charge them to keep and carry out the dharma of kings and warriors so long as they continued to exist. These first warriors accepted that blessing, that responsibility, and the name that the goddess gave to them:
Amara Havana, the Deathless Sacrifice, who had offered their flesh and souls to the struggle against asuras and adharma and whose faith could no more perish than they.
Thus it was written, and thus it remains.
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