From the Ashes of Desire
When Shiva incinerated Kama (the god of desire) with his third eye, Kama's ashes were gathered by the demon Chanda and used to create Bhandasura — a being made from the residue of desire, who proceeded to terrorise creation just as desire itself does.
The gods prayed. A great sacrificial fire was lit on Mount Meru. From the fire arose Lalita Tripura Sundari — the most beautiful form of the goddess.
The Form of All Beauty
Lalita means "she who plays." Tripura means "of the three cities" (the three worlds). Sundari means "the beautiful."
She is the supreme Shakti in her most benevolent form — not the terror of Kali, not the warrior of Durga, but the radiant, smiling sovereign who rules the cosmos with grace.
She rides a throne carried by the four forms of Brahma. Her attendants are the greatest powers of the universe. She holds a sugarcane bow — with which she shoots the five flower-arrows of the five senses — a noose, a goad, and a discus.
The Shri Chakra
Lalita's yantra — her geometric symbol — is the Shri Chakra: nine interlocking triangles at whose centre is a single point (the bindu), surrounded by circles of petals. It is the most complex and most revered yantra in the entire tradition of Tantra.
The Shri Chakra represents the cosmos unfolding from the bindu — the primal point of consciousness — through increasing levels of manifestation, and the path of the devotee returning from the outer world back to that bindu.
The Victory
Lalita destroyed Bhandasura and his armies with the same ease that beauty dissolves anxiety — not through force but through the overwhelming presence of grace.