The autumnal worship of the Goddess in India, culminating in the grand celebrations of Durga Puja and Navratri, is not a mere folk tradition. It is anchored in a profound and sophisticated theological framework that stretches back to the very dawn of Hindu scripture. This philosophical bedrock conceives of the Divine Feminine, or Shakti, not as a consort or a secondary deity, but as the supreme, allpervading cosmic force.
Long before the iconographic depiction of Durga emerged, the concept of a supreme feminine divinity was articulated in one of the most remarkable hymns of the ancient Rig Veda. The Devi Suktam (Mandala 10, Hymn 125) stands as the foundational text of Shaktism, the tradition that venerates the Goddess as the ultimate reality. What makes this hymn radical and foundational is its perspective: it is not a prayer addressed to the Goddess, but a blazing, first-person declaration by the Goddess herself. Speaking through the voice of the seer Vak Ambhrini, who has realized her own identity with the cosmic mother, the Devi reveals her absolute sovereignty over all creation.
This Vedic hymn, recited to this day during Navratri and other rituals dedicated to Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati, provides the philosophical DNA for all subsequent developments in Goddess worship. The concept of the divine feminine as the spiritual essence of the land and its people, first articulated here, created a direct, unbroken lineage that would later be tapped by nationalist thinkers who envisioned India as “Bharat Mata”, the Motherland. This ancient scriptural precedent gave the modern nationalist movement a sacred, indigenous legitimacy that a purely secular political ideology might have lacked.
If the Devi Suktam provided the abstract philosophical foundation, the Devi Mahatmya, a text of 700 verses embedded within the Markandeya Purana (c. 400-600 CE), gave the Goddess her most iconic narrative form.1 This text, also known as the Durga Saptashati or Chandi Path, shifts the conception of the divine feminine from a formless, all-pervading consciousness to an accessible, powerful, and interventionist warrior-Goddess: Durga. It is this text that provides the central mythological basis for the autumnal Durga Puja festival.
This narrative is more than a simple myth of good versus evil (the Goddess Durga against the shapeshifting asura Mahishasura). It serves as a powerful allegory for social and psychological integration. The gods, representing various cosmic principles, are individually potent but collectively impotent against the overwhelming force of the ego-driven, chaotic Mahishasura. Their only solution is to transcend their individual identities and pool their energies, surrendering their power to create a higher, integrated force—Durga.
A pivotal transformation in Durga’s character occurred around the 15th and 16th centuries with the rise of the Bhakti movement and, specifically, Vaishnavism in Bengal. This devotional tradition, with its emphasis on love, grace, and personal relationship with the divine, introduced a softer, more domestic dimension to the fierce Goddess. Durga was reimagined not only as the cosmic warrior Mahishasuramardini but also as Uma or Parvati, the wife of Shiva and the mother of four children: Lakshmi (Goddess of wealth), Saraswati (Goddess of knowledge), Kartik (God of war), and Ganesha (God of beginnings).
This re-characterization gave birth to the central emotional theme of the Bengali Durga Puja: the homecoming of a beloved daughter. It allows devotees to simultaneously worship a supreme, awe-inspiring deity and celebrate a deeply personal, intimate family event.
The first grand, institutionalized celebrations of Durga Puja in Bengal are historically traced to the region’s zamindars (landed aristocrats) and rajas during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The earliest known puja is often attributed to the Sabarna Roy Choudhury family in 1610, predating the establishment of British Calcutta.
However, it was in the 18th century, as Calcutta rose to become the capital of British India, that these private household pujas, known as Bonedi Bari (aristocratic house) pujas, transformed into extravagant displays of wealth, status, and political influence. Critically, these pujas also became a tool for political manoeuvring and alignment with the new colonial masters. The most famous example is the puja initiated by Raja Nabakrishna Deb of the Sovabazar Rajbari in 1757. This grand celebration was explicitly organized to honour Lord Robert Clive’s victory in the Battle of Plassey, which cemented British control over Bengal. British dignitaries, including Lord Clive himself, were invited as chief guests, making the religious festival a platform for a political alliance between the Bengali elite—who were desperate at that time to free themselves from the excesses of Nawab Siraj-uddaullah—and the British East India Company.
The monopolization of Durga Puja by the wealthy elite began to erode in the late 18th century with the emergence of a new form of public celebration. The first community puja, known as a Baroiyari puja (from baro, twelve, and yar, friends), was reportedly started in Guptipara in 1790 by twelve friends who pooled their resources to organize a festival outside the confines of a zamindar’s home. This model of collective, public worship slowly gained traction and evolved into the Sarbojanin Durgotsav, meaning a Durga festival “for all people”.
The first Sarbojanin puja in Calcutta was organized in 1910 by the Sanatan Dharmotsahini Sabha, with the now-famous Baghbazar Sarbojanin starting in 1919. This shift was transformative, democratizing the festival and moving it from the private courtyards of the elite into the public square, making it accessible to all, irrespective of caste or class. This newly created public space was quickly recognized and co-opted by the burgeoning nationalist movement as a powerful platform for anti-colonial mobilization.
Indian nationalists, who were largely excluded from formal colonial political spaces, ingeniously repurposed cultural and religious arenas for their cause. The Durga Puja, with its inherent narrative of a divine protector vanquishing a powerful, oppressive outsider (Asura), provided a potent allegory for the freedom struggle against the British. The writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay had already laid the groundwork in his 1882 novel Anandamath, where he invoked the nation as a divine mother, blending sacred devotion with patriotic zeal in his hymn Vande Mataram. Revolutionaries embraced this symbolism, and Durga was reimagined as Bharat Mata (Mother India), the divine motherland fighting for liberation.
Leaders of the freedom struggle, most notably Subhas Chandra Bose, actively engaged with and promoted these community pujas. At Bose’s suggestion, the Baghbazar Sarbojanin began hosting a Swadeshi Mela (fair for indigenous goods) from 1929 onwards, showcasing Indian-made textiles, matches, and medicines to directly challenge the economic dominance of British imports. The festival became an open-air classroom for Swadeshi economics. At the Simla Byam Samiti puja in 1926, the idol was draped in Khadi cloth, earning it the name “Swadeshi Thakur” (Swadeshi deity).
The power of the festival as a symbol of resistance was so profound that even revolutionaries imprisoned in the dreaded Cellular Jail in the Andamans organized Durga Puja as an act of rebellion and a source of hope. This transformation of a religious festival into a potent platform for secular, anti-colonial political action demonstrates the unique capacity of Indian culture to blend the sacred and the political, effectively weaponizing culture in the fight for freedom.
GODDESS WORSHIP ACROSS INDIA
While Durga Puja in Bengal is perhaps the most internationally recognized form of the autumnal festival, it is part of a much larger, vibrant tapestry of Goddess worship that unfolds across the Indian subcontinent during the same period. Known broadly as Navratri, or “nine nights,” these celebrations exhibit a remarkable diversity in ritual, custom, and theological emphasis.
The accompanying table provides a comparative overview of these diverse regional traditions.
In Western India, especially the state of Gujarat, the nine nights of Navratri are synonymous with vibrant, energetic, and deeply devotional folk dances: Garba and Dandiya Raas. These are not mere performances but forms of mass participatory worship. The Garba dance derives its name from the Sanskrit word garbha, meaning “womb”. Traditionally, the dance is performed in concentric circles around a centrally placed, illuminated clay lantern called a garbha deep (“womb lamp”). Complementing Garba is the Dandiya Raas, a high-energy dance performed in pairs using decorated wooden sticks (dandiyas). The rhythmic striking of the sticks is symbolically interpreted as a reenactment of the mock-sword fight between the Goddess Durga and the demon Mahishasura.
In Northern India, the autumnal festival weaves together the Shakta tradition of Goddess worship with the Vaishnava epic of the Ramayana into a grand, composite celebration of dharma’s triumph. While the nine nights of Navratri are dedicated to the worship of Goddess Durga and her nine forms (Navadurga), the festival’s public expression is dominated by the story of Lord Rama. The centrepiece of the celebration is the Ramlila, a traditional folk performance of the Ramayana epic through a series of scenes involving song, narration, and dialogue. This tradition, based primarily on Tulsidas’s 16th-century Hindi version of the epic, the Ramcharitmanas, is so culturally significant that it was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (Durga Puja is also recognised in the same manner by UNESCO). Both the Devi Mahatmya and the Ramayana share the core theme of a divine intervention to restore cosmic order by defeating a powerful demonic force.
In the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, Navratri takes on a unique aesthetic and social character centred on the tradition of Golu (in Tamil), Bombe Habba (in Kannada), or Bommala Koluvu (in Telugu). This is the festive display of dolls and figurines, meticulously arranged on a tiered platform or set of steps, typically in odd numbers like three, five, seven, or nine. The Golu display is a miniature, symbolic representation of the cosmos. A central and traditional element of the display is the Marapacchi Bommai or Pattada Gombe, a pair of wooden dolls representing a husband and wife, which are gifted to a bride by her parents to start her own Golu collection.
Northeast India, a region that serves as a cultural and ethnic crossroads, preserves some of the most ancient, primal, and potent forms of Shakti worship in the subcontinent. These traditions, often intertwined with tantra and indigenous beliefs, offer a glimpse into the elemental power of the Goddess. The epicentre of Shaktism in the region is the Kamakhya Temple, perched atop the Nilachal hills in Guwahati, Assam. One of the oldest and most revered of the 51 Shakti Peeths, the temple is a major centre for Tantric practices. Uniquely, the sanctum sanctorum contains no idol. Instead, the object of worship is a yoni (vulva) shaped cleft in the rock, perpetually moist from an underground spring. This aniconic representation of the Goddess as the very source of life is a powerful statement of her role as the creative principle of the universe. During the autumn Navratri, Durga Puja is also celebrated at Kamakhya with great fervour.
Other fierce forms of the Goddess are also worshipped in the region, such as Kecaikhati in Arunachal Pradesh (and in Assam), whose name translates to “the eater of raw flesh,” pointing to a history of both animal and, according to oral traditions, human sacrifice.
In Manipur, a fascinating process of cultural negotiation and syncretism is evident. The indigenous Meitei people have their own pre-Hindu religious tradition, Sanamahism, and a rich pantheon of local deities (Umang Lai). Their most important festival is the Lai Haraoba (“merrymaking of the gods”), a ritual enactment of the creation myth that honours deities like the warrior mother Goddess Panthoibi. When Vaishnavism and later Shaktism were introduced to Manipur, beginning in the 18th century under King Pamheiba, they did not entirely displace these indigenous beliefs. Instead, a unique synthesis occurred. Durga Puja is celebrated, but it is often synchronized with and interpreted through the lens of local tradition, with the powerful Goddess Panthoibi being seen as the Meitei equivalent of Durga. This allows the Meitei people to participate in a pan-Indian festival while simultaneously reaffirming the primacy of their own cultural and religious framework.
DURGA PUJA GLOBALLY
The story of Durga Puja in the modern era is incomplete without tracing its journey beyond the borders of India.
The establishment of Durga Puja in the West was a grassroots phenomenon, driven by the desire of new immigrant communities to preserve their cultural heritage and create a sense of belonging in a foreign land. The first Durga Puja in London was organized in 1963. It was initiated not by a large institution but by a small group of young Bengali students who had been meeting for regular adda (informal conversations) and had previously organized a smaller Saraswati Puja. A clay idol (pratima) had to be specially commissioned and shipped from Calcutta (now Kolkata), and the owner of a newly opened Indian sweet shop donated the prasad (food offerings). Held at the Maryward Centre in Russell Square, this first puja attracted Bengalis not just from London but from as far away as Scotland and even mainland Europe, demonstrating a deep-seated need for such a cultural anchor.
A similar story unfolded in the United States a few years later. The amendment of US immigration laws in the late 1960s led to an influx of Indian professionals, who began to form close-knit communities. The year 1970 saw the first community Durga Pujas being organized in several major US cities. Among the most notable was the first puja in New York City, held at Columbia University and organized by the newly formed East Coast Durga Puja Association (ECDPA). These early celebrations were born out of a palpable sense of nostalgia and a longing to recreate the “back-home feel” of the festival.
From these humble beginnings, Durga Puja in the diaspora has grown exponentially in scale, sophistication, and cultural significance. In the United Kingdom, there are now nearly 80 separate Durga Puja celebrations held annually. The oldest puja, started by students in Hampstead in 1963, has evolved into a major cultural event, attracting attendees from across Europe. The largest celebration in London now brings in over 10,000 people, transforming venues into vibrant hubs of Bengali culture with theatre, dance, music, fashion, and food.
Similarly, in the United States, the festival has proliferated from a handful of events in major cities to hundreds of celebrations in suburbs and smaller towns across the country. Organizations like Kallol of New Jersey, which held its first puja in 1977, now host one of the largest and oldest pujas in the US, welcoming thousands of visitors over a three-day period.
Crucially, the modern diaspora puja is no longer an event solely for the Bengali or even the broader Indian community. It has become a platform for cross-cultural engagement, woven into the multicultural fabric of cities like London, New York, and Toronto. The recent, historic celebration of Durga Puja on the streets of New York’s Times Square, organized by the Bengali Club USA, is a powerful testament to this evolution.
This evolution signifies a profound shift in the function of the festival for the diaspora community. For the first generation of immigrants, the puja was an act of preservation, an attempt to replicate the past and combat nostalgia. For the second and third generations, who have grown up in a globalized, multicultural environment, the festival serves a different purpose. It has become a platform for “performing” and negotiating a hybrid cultural identity. The festival is no longer just about remembering a distant “home”; it is about confidently asserting a hyphenated identity—be it British-Indian, American-Bengali, or Canadian-Hindu—in a diverse society.
As India rises as a major economic and political power, the festival, in its modern, globalized form, has transcended its religious and social origins to become a potent instrument of the nation’s cultural, economic, and philosophical influence on the world stage. In celebrating the invincible Goddess, India is also projecting a narrative of its own renewed confidence, asserting its material and philosophical might through one of its most vibrant and cherished traditions.
Durga Puja is not just a festival; it is a colossal economic engine. In the state of West Bengal alone, the “Puja economy” is a thriving ecosystem encompassing artisans, designers, pandal-makers, electricians, retailers, and the hospitality and transport sectors. Recent estimates project its value to be between Rs 46,000 and Rs 50,000 crore (approximately $5.5-$6 billion USD). This immense economic and cultural significance received global validation in 2021 when “Durga Puja in Kolkata” was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
All of this makes Durga Puja, Navratri, and the autumnal worship of the feminine divine in India as much an insignia of India’s rising power as it is of its resonant tradition of devotion.
Hindol Sengupta is a multiple award-winning historian, and author of the upcoming Goddess: A Global History.
