Yogamaya

Yogamaya (योगमाया), also venerated as Vindhyavasini, Mahamaya, and Ekanamsha, is a Hindu goddess. In Vaishnava tradition, she is accorded the epithet Narayani, and serves as the personification of Vishnu's powers of illusion. The deity is regarded as the benevolent aspect of the goddess Durga in the Bhagavata Purana. She is regarded by Shaktas to be a form of Adi Shakti. In Hindu literature, she is born in a Yadava family, as the daughter of Nanda and Yashoda. Yogamaya refers to “the internal potency of Bhagavan, that arranges and enhances all his pastimes” in the Bhagavad Gita. The goddess Vindhyavasini gets her name from the Vindhya Range, literally meaning, "she who resides in Vindhya". At the time of the birth of Krishna as the eighth child of Devaki and Vasudeva, Yogamaya had been born at the same time at the house of Nanda and Yashoda, as instructed by Vishnu. Vasudeva replaced Krishna with this daughter of Yashoda. When Kamsa tried to kill this infant, believing that she was his prophesied killer, she escaped from the grasp of Kamsa, and turned into her form of Durga. She informed the tyrant that his killer had already been born elsewhere, and subsequently vanished from the prison of Mathura. The child, Yoga-māyā-devī, the younger sister of Lord Viṣṇu, slipped upward from Kaṁsa’s hands and appeared in the sky as Devī, the goddess Durgā, with eight arms, completely equipped with weapons O Kaṁsa, you fool, what will be the use of killing me? The Supreme Personality of Godhead, who has been your enemy from the very beginning and who will certainly kill you, has already taken His birth somewhere else. Therefore, do not unnecessarily kill other children Thereafter, she is believed by local lore to have chosen to reside at the Vindhyachala mountains, where her temple is located at present. Some believe she was reborn as Subhadra to help Krishna for establishing dharma. Authors Constance Jones and James D. Ryan opine that Vindhyavasini is mentioned in the Devi Mahatmya, an important text that presents various incarnations or forms of the Supreme Goddess of Shaktism (Mahadevi).