Shumbha- Hindu DemonDemon"Lord of the Asuras"

Conquest and Usurpation

Shumbha and his younger brother Nishumbha obtained boons through prolonged austerities making them invulnerable to gods and demons. They defeated Indra and seized heaven, stripped the gods of their powers one by one, and installed themselves as rulers of the three worlds. The gods were reduced to wandering the earth as refugees.

The Challenge to Devi

When the dispossessed gods praised the supreme Goddess on the Himalayas, the radiant Ambika manifested. Shumbha sent a messenger demanding she choose him or Nishumbha as husband, boasting that all the treasures of the three worlds belonged to them. The Goddess replied that she had made a vow: she would marry only whoever defeated her in battle.

Shumbha sent his generals. Dhumralochana marched with sixty thousand troops; the Goddess reduced him to ash. Chanda and Munda came next, and Kali sprang from the Goddess's brow to devour them. Then came Raktabija, whose blood spawned copies of himself. Kali drank the blood while the Goddess struck him down. Nishumbha fell to her trident.

I Alone Exist

Shumbha confronted Devi directly and accused her of fighting unfairly: "You rely on the power of other goddesses to fight."

The Goddess absorbed every emanated form, the Matrikas, Kali, all her manifestations, back into her single body. Standing alone on the battlefield, she answered: "I alone exist in this world. Who else is there besides me? These are but my own powers entering back into me." She fought Shumbha in single combat, rising into the sky, exchanging blows across the heavens, and drove her spear through his chest.