[MP+4]

Devi Mahatmyam or Chandi is essentially a Tantrik text, incorporated into Markandeya Purana to subserve the interests of Saktism being absorbed by the mainstream Hinduism which had, at one point of time (c, 400-600 A.D.) been resurrecting ever since the Sunga empire breathed new life into it.

Almost all the villages in India had their own deities and the female, uncontrolled energy as an object of worship was prominent among those. In the south this female energy might have had continuity with the women oracles referred to in Sangam literature who used to predict the future when they went into a trance state. The Devi Mahatmyam involving a dispossessed king, a betrayed merchant and a rebel sort of sage, tries to unify the vedic beliefs with this newfound Sakti cult.

Since the vedas did not accept the female principle as the most supreme till such adsorption of the Tantric Sakti cult (whereafter many new inventions like durga sooktam etc., were manufactured to show that vedic assent is present for the Saktic tantrism), it is not correct to say that this Sakti worship, Navaratri pooja etc., are in tune with original vedic beliefs and hence these are unbrahminical. The essentiality of animal sacrifice to please Chandi also reveals its tribal, non-brahminical origin imo. But hinduism being a cocktail of anything and everything, anything goes as most superlative worship.

It is also an intriguing point as to why different areas celebrate this Navaratri for the uncontrollable Goddess (Chandi) in different navaratris; why not in the same ritu?