Sree Lalitha History

During the ancient times, there was a powerful demon named Taraka. He was controlling
and lording over the Universe with his unequalled power and strength. A group of devas
then resolved that only Skanda can destroy Taraka. But, due to the penance of Lord Siva,
the birth of Skanda had been delayed. Manmata (the God of love) was assigned by the
devas to wake up Lord Siva from his deep meditation. With the intention of performing his
job, Manmata applied the flower – shafts of lust on Lord Siva, who then roused with
uncontrollable anger and burnt Manmata with the energy of his Third eye. Another energy
flame from Lord Siva’s third eye gave birth to Lord Skanda, who then destroyed
Tarakasura.

However, due to the absence of Manmata, creation in the World had stopped. Realizing
this, Lord Siva blessed Manmata for his rebirth. As he sprinkled the holy water over the
ashes of Manmata, another demon named Banasura was accidentally created. The supreme
strength of the demon spoiled the righteousness of the three worlds. Indra, the king of
Devas performed a yagna according to the advice of Lord Siva and as a result of this yagna,
Devi Sree Lalitha appeared, embodying the powers of creation, protection and destruction.
The Devas praised her in eloquent terms as Universal Mother.

Lord Siva married her in the avatar of Kameshwara and the Kingdom of Sree Lalitha
originated from the Sreepura, a beautiful city at the crest of the mount Meru, built in the
form of Sree Chakra. In a fierce battle that lasted for a long time, Sree Lalitha destroyed
Banasura.

The philosophical base of this unprecedented success of the Devi is that, the ‘ajnana’
(ignorance) is removed by ‘Jnana’ (realization).

Wisdom Behind the Story of Goddess Lalitha

Daksha means a skilled person, often we see that we get skills in many fields and in the
process we sometimes knowingly or unknowingly get arrogance, due to this arrogance we
ignore the divinity in us, who is represented by Lord Shiva. We often don’t listen to our
conscience and fall to various trouble. Dakshas daughter Sati is representing the energy of
the divinity, the truthfulness, who gets married to Shiva. When arrogance in us reaches its
peak and ignores totally our consciousness, insulting it, then Sati, the truthfulness sacrifices
herself…in arrogance we often don’t see the truthfulness of us or others and act in a manner
which brings miseries to us and around us.

Once the tragedy happens out of arrogance, then our conscience pricks us, this is
represented by Lord Shiva punishing Daksha. Later, as lust (Manmatha) peaks and try to
affect our conscience, two things can happen, either fall in to the sensations of lust or
control ourselves by killing the lustful desires, same thing is represented by Lord Shiva
killing Manmatha by the fire of his third eye, then when gods pray, he revives him but lust
now takes the form of Banasura, the anger resulting out of unfulfilled lustful desires.

Bandakasura and Manmatha, endowed with Thamoguna and Rajoguna respectively, are
personifications of anger and lust. Unfulfilled lust leads to anger and Desire is the root
cause of misery. One should strive to overcome these two qualities. Though both anger and
desire cannot be completely effected, they can be kept under proper check without causing
any hindrance to the practice of Dharma with the grace of Goddess Shri Lalitha Tripura
Sundari, Sri Kamakshi. The three gunas namely Sathvaguna, Rajoguna and Thamoguna
signify judicious action, indiscriminate action, and inaction respectively. By vanquishing
Bandakasura and subduing Manmatha, Goddess Sri Kamakshi (one who fulfills the desires
of her devotees) demonstrated to the entire world the futility of inaction the need for careful
avoidance of indiscretection and the importance of incidences in judulgence action.

So this anger is later killed by the shakti of the divine by raising our consciousness from
lustful desires and anger to the state of bliss, a bliss, which is the blessings received by
reciting the thousand names of Shakti , Sri Lalitha Tripura Sundari. Thus, showing how we
can turn our various material and lustful filled desires in to inward blissful state of
consciousness, merging of the Shakti with Shiva in us, atmarathi.