ORIENTAL SERIES.

86 DEVA-YONIDEVL
enamoured of Sarmishflaa, and she bore him a son, the discovery
of which so enraged Devayani that she parted from her husband,
and went home to her father, having borne two sons, Yadu and
Turvasa or Turvasu. Her father, $ukra, cursed Yayati with the
infirmity of old age, but afterwards offered to transfer it to any
one of Yayati's sons who would submit to receive it. Yadu, the
eldest, and progenitor of the Yadavas, refused, and so did all the
other sons, with the exception of Sarmishh.a's youngest son,
Puru. Those who refused were cursed by their father, that their
posterity should never possess dominion; but Puru, who bore
his father's curse for a thousand years, succeeded his father as
monarch, and was the ancestor of the Pam^avas and Kauravas.
DEYA-YONL (
Of divine birth.' A general name for the
inferior gods, the Adityas, Yasus, Yiswadevas, and others.
DEYL 'The goddess, 7
or Maha-devi, 'the great goddess/
wife of the god iva, and daughter of Himavat, i.e. 9
the Hima-
laya mountains She is mentioned in the Maha-bharata under
a variety of names, and with several of her peculiar character-
istics, but she owes her great distinction to the Purawas and
later works. As the Sakti or female energy of $iva she has two
characters, one mild, the other fierce; and it is under the latter that
she is especially worshipped. She has a great variety of names,
referable to her various forms, attributes, and actions, but these
names are not always used accurately and distinctively. In her
milder form she is Una a,
*
'
the yellow or brilliant ;
*
light/ and a type of beauty ; Gaurl,
Parvati,
* the mountaineer ;
Haimavati, from her parentage ; Jagan-mata, '
'
world ; and Bhavani.
'
In her terrible form she is Durga,
inaccessible ;
'
Kali and $yama, c
the black ;
*
'
and
the mother of the
the
Chanel and Chaw-
cftka, 'the fierce;* and Bhairavi, 'the terrible/ It is in this
character that bloody sacrifices are offered to her, that the bar-
barities of the Durgarpuja and Charak-puja are perpetrated in
her honour, and that the indecent orgies of the Tantrikas are
held to propitiate her favours and celebrate her powers. She
has ten arms, and in most of her hands there are weapons. As
Durga she is a beautiful yellow woman, riding on a tiger in a
fierce
"
she
c
and menacing attitude. As Kali or Kalika, the black/
is represented with a black skin, a hideous and terrible
countenance, dripping with blood, encircled with snakes, hung
round with skulls and human heads, and in all respects resem-