Kali

• 1. Introduction

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  Yama, the lord of death, is said to have fled in terror the moment he heard the name Kali. Her worshippers take the story as a promise that those who revere her can overcome death itself. Kali, also called Kalika, is a major Hindu goddess associated with time, death and destruction. Among the numerous Hindu goddesses, she is held to be the most famous. Devotees nonetheless approach her as the Divine Mother and the Mother of the Universe. How does a figure so frightening come to be loved as a mother? Why is she so often shown standing on her own husband? And where did she come from in the first place?

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• 2. Name and Roots

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  The name Kali grows out of the Sanskrit word kala, and that word hides a puzzle. One kala means time, while a separate word, kāla, means black. Popular etymology fused the two. So Kali can be read as she who rules time, or simply as the dark one. She is also called Kali Mata, the dark mother, and the name works equally well as a title or as a description.

  The word itself appears as early as the Atharva Veda. Its first use as a proper name is in the Kathaka Grhya Sutra, at passage 19.7. Even so, Kali is understood to have begun as a tantric and non-Vedic goddess. Her roots most probably reach back to the pre-Aryan period.

  Indologist Wendy Doniger traces her to the deities of pre-Vedic village, tribal and mountain cultures of South Asia. Over time, she argues, Sanskritic traditions gradually absorbed these gods and transformed them.

  In 1965 the scholar Marvin H. Pope proposed another line of influence, pointing to ancient Near Eastern goddesses. The Bronze Age epic cycles of the Levantine city of Ugarit describe the warrior goddess Anat attaching warriors' heads to her back and girding severed hands at her waist. The text shows her gloating, her heart filling with joy and her liver with laughter. Her brother and consort, the god Baʿlu, finally pacified her with a message of peace. Kali also wears a necklace of heads and a girdle of severed hands, and her tradition has its own tale of a rampage brought to a halt. Her sickle sword might even connect to similar blades from early dynastic Mesopotamia.

  Pope also saw a kinship with the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, who drinks blood. In the myth called The Deliverance of Mankind from Destruction, the sun-god Ra suspected humanity of plotting against him. He sent Hathor, the Eye of Ra and his violent feminine aspect, to destroy his enemies. Hathor appeared as the lion-goddess Sekhmet, and her blood-lust grew so strong that she would not stop even when Ra begged her to. Ra's remedy was a trick. He had a plain flooded with beer dyed red, and Sekhmet drank it, mistaking it for blood, until she was too drunk to keep killing.

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• 3. Battlefield Legends

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  The sixth-century text Devi Mahatmya holds Kali's most famous appearances, and the first begins before she is even called Kali. In its opening chapter the goddess Mahakali emerges from the body of the sleeping Vishnu in the form of Yoga Nidra. Her task is to wake him, so that he can protect Brahma and the world from two asuras, Madhu and Kaitabha. Vishnu fought them for a long time without victory. Mahakali then took the form of Mahamaya and enchanted the pair, and while they were under her spell Vishnu killed them.

  Later chapters bring Chanda and Munda, two asuras who attack the goddess Kaushiki. Her anger is so intense that her face turns dark, and Kali appears out of her forehead. The text describes her as dark blue and gaunt, with sunken eyes, wearing a tiger skin sari and a garland of human heads. She defeats both asuras at once.

  The asura Raktabija is a harder opponent. Every drop of his blood that reaches the ground produces another copy of him. Durga and her assistants, the Matrikas, wound him with many weapons, and each wound only worsens the situation. The battlefield fills with his duplicates. Durga summons Kali, who appears with a sword and a noose, deep red eyes and a lolling tongue. She catches his blood before it can fall, and she eats the countless clones. Then she dances on the corpses of the slain. The scholar Kinsley writes that in this episode Kali represents "Durga's personified wrath, her embodied fury". In this version Kali is also counted as a Matrika and a Shakti, or power, of the goddess Devi. She earns the epithet Chamunda, slayer of Chanda and Munda, and Chamunda is very often identified with Kali.

  The Linga Purana tells a different story, in which Shiva asks Parvati to defeat the asura Daruka. Daruka had received a boon that only a female could kill him. Parvati merges with Shiva's body and reappears as Kali to destroy Daruka and his armies. Her bloodlust then runs out of control, and it calms only when Shiva intervenes.

  The Vamana Purana makes the link between Kali and Parvati more tense. Shiva addresses Parvati as Kali, the dark blue one, and she is deeply offended. Through austerities she loses her dark complexion and becomes Gauri, the golden one. Her discarded dark sheath becomes Kaushiki, and Kaushiki, in a rage, creates Kali.

  In the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Kali turns black out of rage while battling the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha. That darkness is the first thing every image of her shows.

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• 4. Anatomy of an Image

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  A "terrifying emaciated woman" is how one description sums up the usual image of Kali. She has black skin, long tangled hair, red eyes and a long lolling tongue. Her only clothing is a grim set of ornaments, including a necklace of skulls or freshly severed heads and a skirt of severed arms. Her uncommon appearance is offered as one reason for her popularity, and her wildness is seen as a defining part of her character.

  The Kalika Purana paints a gentler portrait. It speaks of a soothing dark complexion, perfect beauty, four arms, a lion for a mount, a sword and a blue lotus, unrestrained hair and a firm, youthful body. Popular Indian art often shows her blue rather than black. Her eyes burn red with intoxication and rage, and serpents and a jackal accompany her.

  In her popular four-armed form, the arms stand for the circle of creation and dissolution. The left hands hold a severed head and a sword. The sword signifies divine knowledge, and the head signifies the human ego that this knowledge must slay before a devotee can reach moksha. The right hands make the abhaya mudra of fearlessness and the varada mudra of blessing. The message is that initiated devotees, or anyone worshipping with a true heart, will be guided by her in this life and the next.

  Her garland of demon heads is counted as 108 in some tellings. That number is auspicious in Hinduism and matches the beads on a japa mala used to repeat mantras. Other tellings count 51, or fifty. The garland then stands for the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari, which tradition calls the Varnamala. Each letter is a form of energy and so a form of Kali, which makes her the mother of language and of all mantras. Her skirt of severed arms represents the karma of her devotees, which she has taken upon herself.

  Her nakedness shows that she lies beyond the covering of Maya, being pure being-consciousness-bliss and far above Prakriti. Her blackness shows Brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities and will continue to exist even when the universe ends. For that reason the ideas of colour, light, good and bad are said not to apply to her. Small embryos serve as her twin earrings, because she favours devotees with childlike qualities. Her forehead is as luminous as the full moon and gives off ambrosia without end.

  Her tongue has several readings. One takes it as a sign of anger and rage. Another sees the red tongue as the rajasic nature conquered by the white, sattvic nature of her teeth. The most widespread reading is embarrassment. Among Odia Hindus the shame, called lajja, comes from the sudden realization that she has stepped on her husband's chest. In Bengal the protruding tongue is accepted as a sign of speechless embarrassment, a gesture very common among Bengalis.

  That husband is Shiva, and his place beneath her foot has its own story. On one battlefield Kali was rampaging after destroying many demons. Vishnu confronted her to cool her down, but she could see nothing beyond her own limitless rage, and he had to step out of her way. The devas grew more afraid, fearing she would not stop until the entire universe was gone. Shiva saw one solution. He lay down on the battlefield so that she would have to step on him. When she saw her consort under her foot, Kali realized she had gone too far, and grief for the damage she had done calmed her. Some tellings add that Shiva was seeking her grace by receiving her foot on his chest, and he is sometimes shown with a blissful smile.

  Rachel Fell McDermott finds that the Mahabhagavata Purana portrays Shiva as "the devotee who falls at Kali's feet in devotion, in the surrender of his ego, or in hopes of gaining moksha by her touch." The same text says he was so enchanted by her that he performed austerities to win her, and then held her feet against his heart in reverence.

  The image invites philosophical readings too. In one, Shiva symbolizes purusha, the universal unchanging aspect of reality, or pure consciousness, while Kali represents Prakriti, nature or matter. Their union stands for ultimate reality. A tantric reading sees Shiva as consciousness and Kali as power or energy, each depending on the other. In that view, without Shakti, Shiva is a corpse, unable to act.

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• 5. Many Faces

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  Tradition gives Kali 8, 12 or 21 different forms, depending on who is counting. The popular ones include Adya Kali, Chintamani Kali, Smashana Kali and Shyama Kali. In Bengal people also worship Raksha Kali, Bhadra Kali and Guhya Kali. Raksha Kali is the form worshipped for protection against epidemics and drought. In Gujarat, Khodiyar is a regional form of Mahakali.

  Mahakali means "Great Kali" and is sometimes treated as a greater form of her, identified with the ultimate reality of Brahman. The name can also serve as an honorific for the goddess. Mahakali symbolizes absolute night and the power of time, and she is known as the origin of all things. Her consort is Mahakala. She is shown with five or ten heads, each with three eyes, holding different weapons. The Skanda Purana says Kali took this form at Shiva's instruction, because he wanted her to destroy the world at the time of universal destruction. In her ten-armed form she shines like a blue stone, with ten faces, ten feet and three eyes on each head. There is no association with Shiva in this form.

  Dakshinakali is the most popular form of Kali in Bengal, where she appears as the benevolent mother who shields devotees and their children from mishaps and misfortunes. Several stories explain her name. Dakshina is the gift given to a priest before a ritual, or to one's guru, and such gifts are traditionally given with the right hand. Her two right hands usually make gestures of blessing and boon-giving. She is typically shown with her right foot on Shiva's chest. That right foot forward symbolizes the popular dakṣiṇācāra, the right-hand path, as opposed to the more infamous and transgressive vamachara, the left-hand path. Showing her left foot on his chest gives the even more fearsome Vamakali, usually worshipped by non-householders.

  The popularity of this form is often credited to Krishnananda Agamavagisha, a noted 17th-century Bengali Tantra thinker and author of the Tantrasara. Kali reportedly appeared to him in a dream. She told him to popularize her in a particular form that would appear to him the next day. The next morning he saw a young woman making cow dung patties. As she placed one on a wall, she stood in the alidha pose with her right foot forward. When she noticed Krishnananda watching, she was embarrassed and put her tongue between her teeth. He recognized the divine form he had been told to find. Krishnananda was also the guru of the devotee and poet Ramprasad Sen.

  Samhara Kali, also called Vama Kali, embodies the power of destruction. She is the chief goddess of the Tantric texts and the most dangerous and powerful form of Kali. She takes shape when Kali steps out with her left foot, holding her sword in her right hand. As the Kali of death and destruction, she gives both death and liberation. The Mahakala Samhita describes her as two armed and black in complexion, standing on a corpse. In her hands are a freshly cut head and a plate to catch the dripping blood. Warriors worship her, and so do the tantrics, the followers of Tantra.

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• 6. Mother and Terror

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  Kali is the first of the ten Mahavidyas, a group of goddesses who provide liberating knowledge. Her main devotional home is the Kalikula tradition. The closest route to direct worship runs through her forms Mahakali and Bhadrakali, whose name Bhadra means gentle in Sanskrit.

  Tantrism holds that reality comes from the mutual interaction of male and female, of Shiva and Shakti. For this reason goddesses are essential to the study and practice of Tantra Yoga. Many Tantric texts revere Kali as the highest reality or the greatest of all deities. The Niruttara-tantra and the Picchila-tantra declare that among all mantras, hers are the greatest. The Yogini-tantra, the Kamakhya-tantra and the Niruttara-tantra call her an essential form of Mahadevi.

  The Karpuradi-stotra, dated to roughly the 10th century CE, describes the Pancatattva ritual performed on cremation grounds. It states that a sadhaka who meditates on the terrible aspects of Kali's form and confronts her can attain salvation. The same text also describes a gentler Kali, young and smiling and called the supreme being of the universe. In this benign form she grants salvation once fear is overcome. She moves from being a symbol of death to being a symbol of triumph over death.

  In late medieval Bengal, Kali became a central figure of devotional literature, and two poets stand out. Ramprasad Sen lived from 1718 to 1775, and Kamalakanta Bhattacharya lived from 1769 to 1821. Apart from her link with Parvati as Shiva's consort, Kali was rarely pictured as a motherly figure in Hindu legend or art before Bengali devotion began in the early eighteenth century. Even there, her appearance and habits changed little, if at all. The Tantric approach is to show courage by confronting her on cremation grounds in the dead of night. The Bengali devotee instead adopts the attitude of a child and comes to love her without reservation. For both, the goal is to be reconciled with death and to accept the way things are.

  Ramprasad's songs do not offer easy comfort. He sings that Kali is indifferent to his wellbeing, makes him suffer, reduces his worldly desires to nothing and his goods to ruin. She does not behave as a mother should, he says, and she ignores his pleas. To be her child, he asserts, is to be denied earthly delights. Her very refusal to give what is expected may be what lets her devotees reflect on parts of themselves and of reality that lie beyond the material world. A large portion of Bengali devotional music, known as Shyama Sangeet, has Kali as its central theme.

  Kali Puja, in eastern India, takes place when the new moon day of the month of Ashwin coincides with the festival of Diwali. Animal sacrifice is still practiced during Kali Puja in Bengal, Orissa and Assam, though it is rare outside those areas. Temples that continue it ritually kill goats, chickens and sometimes male water buffalos. The practice is growing less common throughout India. Brahmin priests generally lead the rituals, and a Brahmin priest recites a mantra in the ear of the animal to free it from the cycle of life and death. Groups such as People for Animals continue to protest, citing court rulings that forbid the practice in some locations.

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• 7. Beyond Hinduism

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  The Kaula and Krama, two Tantric Kali cults, left a strong mark on Tantric Buddhism. It shows in fierce-looking yoginis and dakinis such as Vajrayogini and Krodikali. In Tibet, Krodikali is known as Tröma Nagmo, which means "The Black Wrathful Lady". She is a key deity in the Chöd practice tradition founded by Machig Labdron, and she is seen as a fierce form of Vajrayogini. Similar fierce deities include the dark blue Ugra Tara and the lion-faced Simhamukha.

  At Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, in the Camargue region of southern France, Roma gather each year on a pilgrimage honoring Saint Sarah, also known as Sara-la-Kali, "Sara the Black". A few authors have compared her ceremonies with Kali worship. They suggest the wandering Romani may have carried a form of it west in medieval times. Ronald Lee wrote in 2001 that similarities in the rites at the shrine suggest Kali and Durga worship were incorporated into a Christian figure.

  On Réunion, an island territory of France in the Indian Ocean, veneration for Saint Expeditus, known there as Saint Expédit, is very popular. The Malbars of the island have Tamil ancestry but are, at least nominally, Catholic. Among them the saint is identified with Kali.

  In Sri Lanka, Sinhala Buddhist tradition explains Kali's origin through a journey from South India to Munneśvaram. There she ate humans and tried to eat Pattini, who instead tamed her. She is regarded as having seven forms, among them Bhadrakāli, Pēnakāli and Ginikāli. These forms are subordinate to Kāliammā, the mother of Kāli. Devotees offer her red flowers, silver coins, blood and oil lamps with mustard oil. As Pattini's servant, she accepts offerings on her mistress's behalf. Her worship there dates back to at least the 9th century CE. In the 13th century Dharmasena Thera created the Sadharma Ratnavaliya, based on an older 5th-century work. It recasts Kali in a Buddhist frame and explores how violence and vengeance trap people in cycles, until justification, guilt, and good and evil become irrelevant. Sri Lankans have seen her as both a demon, though a tamed one, and a goddess. She and the mythical Sinhala Buddhist kings both treat demonic fury as a necessary condition of conquest. Yantras connected to her draw on the Pali Canon, on later Buddhist paritta chants, and on non-Buddhist sources. The Sādhakayantra is popular, and its mantra includes Arabic words and Islamic concepts.

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• 8. Kali Today

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  Rachel Fell McDermott, Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Columbia University, has written several books on Kali. In 1998 she wrote that feminists and New Age spiritualists were drawn to Kali as a symbol of repressed female power, sexuality and healing. She called this a misinterpretation rooted in a lack of knowledge about Hindu religious tradition. By 2003 she had amended that view, saying cross-cultural borrowing is natural in an age of religious globalization and should simply be done thoughtfully. She added that Kali enthusiasts since the early 1990s had worked toward a more informed approach, one that includes more Indian perspective on her character. One academic study of Western devotees concluded that Kali devotionalism there must take on its own indigenous forms if it is to adapt to a new environment.

  Since the late twentieth century, various feminist movements in the West have linked Kali with women's empowerment. New Age spiritual movements have found in her images and myths an inspiration for theological and sexual liberation. Her emergence as an image of significance for many women, both Hindu and non-Hindu, has been noteworthy. A modern version of Kali appeared on the cover of the first issue of the feminist magazine Ms. in 1972. Her many arms stood for the many tasks of the contemporary American woman.

  The tongue-and-lips logo of the band The Rolling Stones, created in 1971, was inspired by the stuck-out tongue of Kali. Film has been less kind to her worshippers. The 1939 American adventure Gunga Din features a resurgent sect of Thugs who worship Kali and wage war on the British Raj. In the Beatles' 1965 film Help!, Ringo Starr is pursued by Kali worshippers who intend to sacrifice him. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, from 1984, is set in 1935 and makes a Thuggee cult of Kali worshippers its villains.

  An Indian television series from 2017, Mahakali: Anth Hi Aarambh Hai, tells the story from inside the tradition. In it Parvati, Shiva's consort, becomes Mahakali and takes varied forms to destroy evil and protect the innocent. The two goddesses whose entanglement the old Puranas debate are still being retold on screen.

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