The City That Still Carries the Demon’s Name

The city that still carries his name

There is a hill above Mysuru with a temple on it. The country below that hill was once ruled by a buffalo-headed asura called Mahishasura.

He had the boon everybody in these stories has. No man and no god could kill him. And like everybody who has had it, he had asked the question carelessly. He had not thought to put a woman on the list. It had not occurred to him that he would need to.

The gods, having no answer of their own, made one. Each gave what he had. The trident, the discus, the bow, the thunderbolt, the lion. What stood up when they had finished was not any of them, and was stronger than all of them together.

She came down on him from the hill.

The fight in the local telling takes days. He changes shape all through it. Buffalo, lion, elephant, man, buffalo again. And she waits each time. At the end she puts her foot on him and it is done. The hill she came down from has been called Chamundi Hill ever since.

And here is the part worth stopping on.

The city did not take her name. It took his. Mahishuru, the place of Mahishasura, is the word that has come down to us as Mysuru. His statue stands on the hill she killed him from. And he is not depicted as a monster. He is a king, armed, with a cobra in his hand.