Introduction
In our presentation of the miscellaneous calendrical events of the lunar year we set aside a group of events distributed throughout the year for special treatment. This group, closely related to the rice agricultural cycle, makes up a thematically interrelated set in which the meaning of each unit is dependent on the entire group. While the meaning of the other events of the lunar cycle is often affected by their structural similarities and contrasts with other events in the cycle, the events in the Devi cycle are related by a central thread. This thread is a narrative of the states and activities of one group of supernatural beings, the "Nine Durgas," a group of dangerous deities thought locally to be uniquely associated with Bhaktapur (see fig. 27).
The Nine Durgas are, in part, manifestations of Devi, the Goddess. In the course of Mohani at the time of the climactic harvest of the rice cycle Devi is portrayed in all her complexity. Mohani brings her transcendent exploits as the conquering Mahisasuramardini in the mythic realm into concrete representation in Bhaktapur's mesocosm and, in so doing, brings the mythic Devi into empowering contact with the local legendary Nine Durgas.
In our listings of the annual calendrical events of the lunar cycle we were able to use the lunar New Year's Day as a place to enter it and to begin it. The Devi cycle has no conventional beginning, and there is more than one place where a descriptive beginning might be justified.
Figure 27.
The Nine Durgas' pyakha(n) . Duma dancing.
One might be with Mohani itself, in which, with the harvest, the presence and protection of the Goddess is returned to and into the city after a vital sojourn outside in the fields and away in other realms. Another entree to the cycle, the one we have chosen, is with the departure from the city of Devi's manifestations, the Nine Durgas. The results of that departure conveys the implications of her absence and thus the meaning of her return. We will preface our description of the cycle itself with a necessarily detailed introduction to the legend, membership, and iconography of the Nine Durgas troupe.[1] For the Devi cycle, as they were for the focal Biska: festival, details are essential.