Chandraghanta

Chandraghanta is the third of the Navadurga, the sequence of nine forms of the goddess Durga worshipped on successive nights of Navratri. Her name combines chandra (moon) and ghanta (bell), referring to the bell- or half-moon-shaped ornament said to adorn her forehead.

Iconography

In devotional description, Chandraghanta is golden-complexioned and rides a lion, her posture suggesting readiness for battle against evil. She is depicted with ten arms bearing an array of weapons — among them a mace (gada), sword, trident, bow, and arrow — alongside a rosary and a water-pot (kamandalu), with two hands held in gestures of blessing (varada) and reassurance (abhaya) toward her devotees. In this martial aspect she is also called Ranchandi.

Place Within the Navadurga Tradition

The sequence of nine Durga forms honoured across Navratri's nine nights — Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skandamata, Katyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri, and Siddhidatri — is associated with the Devi Kavacha, a devotional and protective text recited alongside the Durga Saptashati portion of the Markandeya Purana. Unlike the connected narrative of the Devi Mahatmya, which recounts Durga's battles against Mahishasura and against Shumbha and Nishumbha, the Navadurga sequence functions primarily as a liturgical framework for structuring nine days of worship rather than as a sequential myth in its own right.

Worship on the Third Day of Navratri

Devotees traditionally bathe and perform Kalash puja before meditating on Chandraghanta and lighting a ghee lamp in her honour, offering flowers, vermilion, and unbroken rice (akshat). A widely recited invocation runs, "Ya devi sarvabhuteshu maa Chandraghanta rupena samsthita, namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo namah," alongside the beej (seed) mantra "Aim Shreem Shaktyai Namah," traditionally chanted 108 times. Offerings of milk-based sweets or kheer are typically made as prasad. Devotees associate her worship with courage, self-reliance, and inner discipline, and some devotional almanacs link the third day of Navratri astrologically with the planet Venus (Shukra).

Interpretation Within the Nine-Day Sequence

In devotional interpretation, the Navadurga's nine-day progression is often read as a symbolic arc: Shailaputri, the mountain-born daughter, and Brahmacharini, the ascetic in penance, represent origin and discipline, while Chandraghanta, poised for battle with weapons drawn, marks the turn toward active courage and readiness to confront obstacles — a transition popularly said to be echoed in the bell (ghanta) she bears, an instrument traditionally rung to announce the start of a undertaking or to ward off negative forces. It is worth noting that this nine-form devotional schema, though widely treated as timeless, achieved its familiar standardized form chiefly through vernacular and popular Shakta devotional literature and calendars in the medieval and early modern periods, distinct from — and later than — the connected battle narrative of the Devi Mahatmya itself.