to overthrow his enemy because of the assistance afforded him by Siva, the gods whom Ravana had oppressed went, with Rama at their head, to ask him to withdraw his help. Siva consented to accompany them on the seventh day of the conflict to witness the destruction of their foe. Durga (Parvati) severely reproached her husband, asking how he could witness the destruction of his own worshipper, a worshipper who had stood praying to him in the most sultry weather surrounded by four fires; who had continued his devotions in the chilling cold, standing in water; and had persevered in his applications, standing on his head, amid torrents of rain. She then poured forth a torrent of abuse, calling him a withered old man, who smoked intoxicating herbs, lived in cemeteries and covered himself with ashes, and asked if he thought she would accompany him on such an errand. Siva now gets angry, and reminds his wife that she was only a woman and therefore could know nothing; and further that she does not act like a woman, because she too wandered about from place to place, engaged in war, was a drunkard, spent her time in the company of degraded beings, killed giants, drank their blood and hung their skulls around her neck. Durga became so enraged at these reproaches, that the gods were frightened. They entreated Rama to join them in supplication to her, or Ravana would never be destroyed. He did so; she then became propitious and consented to the destruction of the demon. Durga is represented in the Sivopakhyana as being exceedingly jealous because her husband, in his begging excursions, visited the quarters of the town inhabited by women of ill-fame, and in the Ramayana is an account of a terrible quarrel between them because Parasurama beat her sons Kartikeya and Ganesa.