Chapter 7: The Slaying of Chanda and Munda
The Rishi said:
Then at his command the asuras, fully armed, and with Chanda
and Munda at their head, marched in fourfold array. They saw the Devi, smiling
gently, seated upon the lion on a huge golden peak of the great mountain.
On seeing her, some of them excited themselves and made an
effort to capture her, and others approached her, with their bows bent and
swords drawn.
Thereupon Ambika became terribly angry with those foes, and
in her anger her countenance then became dark as ink. Out from the surface of
her forehead, fierce with frown, suddenly issued Kali of terrible countenance,
armed with a sword and noose. Bearing the strange skull-topped staff, decorated
with a garland of skulls, clad in a tiger's skin, very appalling owing to her
emaciated flesh, with gaping mouth, fearful with her tongue lolling out, having
deep-sunk reddish eyes and filling the regions of the sky with her roars, and
falling upon impetuously and slaughtering the great asuras in that army, she
devoured those hosts of the foes of the devas.
Then the Devi, mounting upon her great lion, rushed at
Chanda, and seizing him by his hair, severed his head with her sword. Seeing
Chanda being slain, Munda also rushed at her. She felled him also to the
ground, striking him with her sword in her fury.
Seeing the most valiant Chanda and Munda laid low, the
remaining army there became panicky and fled in all directions. And Kali,
holding the heads of Chanda and Munda in her hands, approached Chandika and
said, 'Here have I brought you the heads of Chanda and Munda as two great
animal offerings in this sacrifice of battle; Shumbha and Nishumbha, you shall
yourself slay.'
The Rishi said: Thereupon seeing those asuras, Chanda and
Munda brought to her, the auspicious Chandika said to Kali these playful words:
'Because you have brought me both Chanda and Munda, you O Devi, shall be famed
in the world by the name Chamunda. Here ends the seventh chapter called 'The
slaying of Chanda and Munda' of Devi-Mahatmya in Markandeya Purana, during the
period of Savarni, the Manu.
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