The Devi Bhagavata Purana is counted among the Puranas and tells, in twelve books and 318 chapters, of creation, the deities and the royal lines, with the Goddess at the centre of all. By its own count it holds eighteen thousand verses. Tradition attributes it to Sage Veda Vyasa, who tells it to King Janamejaya, son of Parikshit, and Sage Suta in turn recites it to the sages gathered at Naimisharanya.
In its telling the Goddess is Brahman itself, the power through which Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva create, preserve and dissolve the worlds. Its fifth book tells of her battles with Mahishasura and with Shumbha and Nishumbha. The closing chapters of the seventh tell of her birth as the daughter of Himavan, king of the mountains, and of the teaching on the Self that she gives him; the ninth names the five forms in which she creates — Durga, Radha, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Savitri; and the twelfth describes her island of jewels, Manidvipa, set in an ocean of nectar.
Its third book closes with the Navratri that Rama keeps: Sage Narada counsels him, grieving for Sita, to worship the Goddess for nine nights in the month of Ashvin, and after the worship of victory on the tenth day Rama sets out for the sea and Lanka. Its seventh book tells how the parts of Sati's body fell across the land and each place became a seat of the Goddess — the tradition behind the Shakti Peeth temples in this collection. There the Goddess also names the places on earth dear to her, beginning with Kolhapur, Mahur, Tuljapur and Saptashrungi, the three and a half Shakti Peethas of Maharashtra.