Goddess Durga is the embodiment of the divine feminine power — the Mother Energy. Her form is golden and radiant with beauty. Her idols in Bengali Durga puja are golden in color. There are also stories in Puranas that support this complexion.
According to mythological tales, Durga’s complexion is like
the color of the Atasi flower. In the villages of Bengal, this flower glows
with a golden-yellow hue, bright like burnished gold. Thus, her form too is
imagined to shine like gold. Since time immemorial, Bengal’s clay sculptors
have created her image in this way.
The Matsya Purana describes the goddess as Tapta Kanchana
Varna — meaning the color of molten gold, like gold heated to a glowing liquid.
In Durga’s meditation mantras, she is envisioned in this radiant
golden form.
Story Of Golden Hue Complexion
According to the Brihaddharma Purana, it was Brahma who
arranged for Rama’s worship of Durga. Since it was the Dakshinayana, the gods’
time of slumber, Durga had to be awakened — an unseasonal invocation (Akaal
Bodhan). Appearing as a young girl (Kumari), the goddess instructed Brahma to
awaken her under a Bilva (bael) tree. When the gods came down to earth, they
saw, among the green leaves of the bael tree, a golden-hued girl, glowing like
molten gold, asleep in a secluded spot. Brahma instantly realized that she was
Durga herself. Through the Bodhan stotra (hymn of awakening), Brahma awakened
her. Thus, even in her child form, Durga was Tapta Kanchana Varna — golden like
molten metal.
Through the ages, scriptures have described the complexion
of the goddess with terms like Gaurvarna (fair), Svarnavarna (golden), and Pitavarna
(yellow). It is even said that Uma, consort of Shiva, is colored like the stalk
of the Shiuli (night jasmine) flower.
But is Durga worshipped only in her golden brilliance across
Bengal?
Hardly so — for Bengal is a land of diversity, rich with
variations at every turn. Here, red, blue, and even black forms of Durga are
worshipped — a reflection of Bengal’s pluralistic spirit.
- At the Bhattacharya household in Yoginathtala, Nabadwip (Nadia), Durga is worshipped in crimson (blood-red) form.
- At the Bhattacharya home in Uttarpara, Hooghly, and the Ray family of Kathghora Lane, Bansberia, Durga is red.
- In Nazirpara, Krishnanagar, the Chattopadhyay family’s Durga is blue.
- At Bhattacharya’s house on Ramkrishna Naskar Lane, Beleghata, the goddess is black.
- In Bahirgachhi village of Hanskhali, Nadia district, Durga is as dark as the night of the new moon.
- At the Bhattacharya family home in Canning, Durga’s face is black, while the rest of her body is brown.
Sometimes, accidents like fires, and sometimes artists’
deliberate or mistaken choices, have given rise to these exceptional depictions
of the goddess’s complexion.
