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Válmiki
Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 3: Utpatti-Prakarana (Evolution of the World). Chapter 83 - Worship of Kandarā Alias Mangalā
Vasistha continued : The Rāksasī thus continued in her devotion, and remained on friendly terms with the successive rulers of the Kirāta country, who kept supplying her with her rations. (The Rāksasī man-eater was turned to Rāksinī or preserver of men).
She continued by the power of her perfection in the practice of Yoga meditation, to prevent all portents, to ward off all dread and danger of demons, and remove the diseases of the people. 1
In the course of many years of her meditation, she used to come out of her cell at certain intervals, and call at the head quarters, for her capture of the collection of living creatures kept for her victims. 2
The practice continues still to be observed by the princes of the place, who conduct the animals to be sacrificed to her departed ghost on the hill; as none can be negligent to repay the good services of his benefactor. 3
At last she became defunct in her meditation, and ceased since long to appear to the habitations of men, and lend her aid in removing their diseases, dangers and difficulties. (The good genius of the place left it at last).
The people then dedicated a high temple to her memory, and placed in it a statue of hers, under the title of Kandarā- caverner alias Mangalā devī-the auspicious goddess. 4
Since then it is the custom of the chiefs of the tribe, to consecrate a newly made statue in honour of the Kandarā Devī- the dilapidated. 5
Any prince of the place, who out of his vileness, fails to consecrate the statue of the Kandarā goddess, brings out of his own perverseness, great calamities to visit his people. 6
By worshipping her, man obtains the fruits of all his desires; and by neglecting it, he exposes himself to all sorts of evils and calamities; as effects of the pleasure and displeasure of the goddess to her votaries or otherwise. 7
The goddess is still worshipped, by dying and ailing people with offerings, for remedy of their illness and securing her blessings; and she in her turn distributes her rewards among them, that worship her either in her statue or picture. 8
She is the bestower of all blessings to young babes, and weak calves and cows; while she kills the hardy and proud that de serve their death.
She is the goddess of intelligence and favours the intelligent and presides forever in the realm of the Kirāta people. 9
Footnotes
1. All these were done by the Rāksasī-vidyā now lost, and by supernatural powers gained by yoga.
2. Man slaughter was not blameable on the part of the cannibal Rāksasī, though practising the yoga; nor was the eating of animal flesh reprehensible in Vasist ha himself, who had been a flesh eating yogī. (See Uttararāmacarita).
3. Hence the prevalence of the practice of offering sacrifices to the names of ancestors and deified heroes and heroines, and even of demons for their past good services.
4. The whole legend of the Kandarā of Kirātas, alludes to the account of Mangalā Candī alias Kālikā Devī - the black and voracious goddess of the Hindus.
5. The Kirāntis are said to continue in their idolatry to this day, notwithstanding the conversion of their fellow hill tribes to Mahomedanism, except the Kafers- another hill tribe of the Himālayas who are idolators still.
6. This sort of retributive justice is expressed in the adage "rājadosat rājya nasta- "And for the kings offence the people died." Pope's Homer's Iliad I.
7. The two clauses are instances of affirmative and negative Enthymems coupled together as anvaya vyatirekī. The first enthymem of the anticedent and consequent is affirmative anvayī and the other a vyatirekī or negative one.
8. Raksā Kālī is worshipped in statue, but Mongla Candī is worshipped in a ghata or potful of water.
9. Vasistha being a theist, reviles like a Vaisnava, the black goddess as a Rāksasī, which a Kaula cannot countenance.
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