With NavRatri beginning tonight – here’s an enumeration of the Nine NavaDurgas (One for each Night) … along with an attempt to make the theonyms more understandable via colour-coding.

The colour of the part of the word in Sanskrit corresponds to the English word it’s translated as. So, for instance, ‘Shailaputri’ has ‘Shaila’ (Mountain) in Grey and ‘Putri’ (Daughter) in Pink.

Now not all of these theonyms lend themselves to easy (nor, more especially, succinct) translational rendering – so to explain meanings, I’ve also included some more figurative (but in essence accurately apt) presentations .

For more on all of the Nine, you can read the ‘overview’ (A)Arti-cle I put up this morning – which examines Them in the context of Their narrative procession through the mythic cycle of NavRatri; and/or you can check out the much more extensive and in-depth specific commentaries on each individual NavaDurga that we’ve published previously.

Jai Mata DI !