History of the Worship of the Goddess in the Vindhya mountains

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1.During the fourth and the seventh centuries, the worship of Vindhyavasini the Goddess who abides in the Vindhya mountains and that of Mahisasuramardini the Goddess who slays the buffalo demon were flourished, fused into a more inclusive concept, the demon-slaying Goddess. In response to that, both Vaisnavas and Shaivas tackled the question of how to incorporate the myth and worship of these goddesses into their mythic cycle : In Vaisnava the Harivamsa (c. 4^<th> cent.) attempted to introduce Vindhyavasini into the Visnu-Krsna myth, and in Shaiva, on the other hand, the original Skandapurana (c. 6^<th> -7^<th> cent.) subsumed Vindhyavasini, who had been assimilated with Mahisasuramardini, under the consort of Shiva, Parvati, as the latter s manifestation and daughter. In this project main research was carried out into the myth of the Goddess covering eighteen chapters in the original Skandapurana in the three respects : (1) the preparation of a new critical edition of the two thirds of the whole and an English synopsis of the whole ; (2) the analysis of the structure of the myth ; (3) the studies of some motifs appearing in the myth.2.The comparison of the result of the main research mentioned above with the study of Vindhyavasini in the Harivamsa enabled us to extract the characteristics of Vindhyavasini she had had before being incorporated into the Vaisnava and the Shaiva mythic cycle, such as the dark complexion, virginity, and her slaying of demons. The comparison also makes clear that the Skandapurana depicts Vindhyavasini as a warrior in contrast to the more barbarian image of her in the Harivamsa, which suggests that the concept of the Warrior Goddess had been formulated at the time of the composition of the Skandapurana. Later in the Devimahatmya (c. 8^<th> cent.) this Warrior Goddess attains the states of the supreme Goddess.3.The research of the worship of the Goddess in the Vindhya mountains after the ninth century remains to be done.