To call on God as Mother is a characteristic featuer of Hinduism. Devi-Mahatmyam or Durga-Saptasati, also popularly known as Chandi, is one of the sacred texts chanted during the worship of The Divine Mother. This book presents to the readers the English edition of Chandi. This will make the chanting possible for those who have no access to Sanskrit. The original text has been transliterated in English accopanied by a lucid English translation. Footnotes have been added wherever necessary. Chandi is divided into 13 chapters and consists of 700 mantras and hence it is called the Saptasati. Three aspects of the Divine Mother have been depicted in the book and they are (1) Mahakali (Chapter I), (2) Mahalaksmi (Chapters II to IV) and (3)Mahasarasvati (Chapters V to XIII) and meditation on each of them has been added with English translation. The whole of Devi-Mahatmyam is chanted on sacred occasions, especially during the Durga-Puja (Navaratri).
I have been asked many times, Why do you laugh so much and make so many jokes? I become serious sometimes--when I have a stomachache! The Lord is all blissfulness. He is the reality behind all that exists. He is the goodness, the truth in everything. You are His incarnations. That is what is glorious. The nearer you are to Him, the less you will have occasions to cry or weep. The further we are from Him, the more will long faces come. The more we know of Him, the more misery vanishes.
-Swami Vivekananda
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