Kali

[Sanskrit Kālī, from kālī, feminine of kāla-, dark, of Dravidian origin, akin to Kannada kāḍu, black, blackness.]

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Kali, sandstone relief from Bheraghat, near Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh state, India, 10th century … (credit: Pramod Chandra)

Destructive and devouring Hindu goddess. She is a terrifying aspect of Devi, who in other forms appears as peaceful and benevolent. Kali is commonly associated with death, violence, sexuality, and, paradoxically, with motherly love. Noted for killing the demon Raktavija, she is usually depicted as a hideous, black-faced hag smeared with blood. In her four hands she holds, variously, a sword, a shield, the severed head of a giant, or a noose for strangling. Nearly naked, she wears a garland of skulls and a girdle of severed hands. She is often shown standing or dancing on her husband, Shiva. Until the 19th century the thugs of India worshiped Kali and offered their victims to her. In the late 20th century she became a symbol of feminine empowerment in some circles.

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A popular Indian goddess of Assamese origin, mentioned but hardly ever revered in Buddhism although elements of her iconography and worship may have been borrowed by practitioners of late anuttara-yoga-tantra.

One of several forms of the great Indian Goddess or Devī (see Devī, Pārvatī, Durgā, śakti), Kālī is the black goddess of destruction, the logical wife for Śiva (see Śiva) in his aspect of great Destroyer in the dance of existence (see Dance of Śiva). But whereas Śiva's dance is in the cosmic realm, Kālī's is in this world. Kālī's name is the feminine form of the word kāla, meaning Time, that which relates to the ever-devouring principle that dominates the animate world. Her name is also related to the Vedic (see Vedic entries) name for one of the tongues of the sacrificial fire. Kālī might be said to be the embodiment of the Hindu (see Hinduism, Hindu Mythology) belief: that the world exists only by way of sacrifice. Essential to this belief is the idea that the consumption of aspects of life is the source of prosperity. It should be noted in this connection that “Prosperity” is the meaning of Lakṣmī (see Lakṣmī), the wife of Viṣṇu (see Viṣṇu), the Preserver. In the popular depiction of Kālī, who has wild eyes, bloody fangs, and human heads as a necklace around her neck, she is standing on an apparently dead Śiva, who nevertheless has an erection. The combination of Śiva's virility, the destructive nature of the Kālī figure, and the fact that the goddess carries a bowl overflowing with the abundance of life, would seem to suggest the necessity of death for fertility and the constant creation of life. It may be said that Kālī's rampages also represent the spiritual necessity of killing weaknesses of the spirit without mercy in order to discover the true self. Kālī is particularly popular in Bengal.

A major deity in the mythology of India Kali was known for, among other characteristics, her blood-thirst. Kali first appeared in Indian writings around the sixth-century A.D. in invocations calling for her assistance in war. In these early texts she was described as having fangs, wearing a garland of corpses, and living at the cremation ground. Several centuries later, in the Bhagavat-purana, she and her cohorts, the dakinis, turned on a band of thieves, decapitated them, got drunk on their blood, and played a game of tossing the heads around. Other writings called for her temples to be built away from the villages near the cremation grounds.

Kali made her most famous appearance in the Devi-mahatmya, where she joined the goddess Durga in fighting the demon Raktabija. Raktabija had the ability to reproduce himself with each drop of spilled blood; thus, in fighting him successfully, Durga found herself being overwhelmed by Raktabija clones. Kali rescued Durga by vampirizing Raktabija and eating the duplicates. Kali came to be seen by some as Durga's wrathful aspect. Kali also appeared as a consort of the god Siva. They engaged in fierce dance. Pictorially, Kali generally was shown on top of Siva's prone body in the dominant position as they engaged in sexual intercourse.

Kali had an ambiguous relationship to the world. On the one hand she destroyed demons and thus brought order. However, she also served as a representation of forces that threatened social order and stability by her blood drunkenness and subsequent frenzied activity.

Kali became the dominant deity within Tantric Hinduism, where she was praised as the original form of things and the origin of all that exists. She was termed Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress. In Tantra, the way of salvation was through the sensual delights of the world-those things usually forbidden to a devout Hindu-such as alcohol and sex. Kali represented the ultimate forbidden realities, and was thus to be taken into the self and overcome in what amounted to a ritual of salvation. She taught that life fed on death, that death was inevitable for all beings, and that in the acceptance of these truths-by confronting Kali in the cremation grounds and thus demonstrating courage equal to her terrible nature-there was liberation. Kali, like many vampire-deities, symbolized the disorder that continually appeared amid all attempts to create order. Life was ultimately untamable and unpredictable.

Kali survived among the Gypsies who had migrated from India to Europe in the Middle Ages, as Sara, the Black Goddess. However, her vampiric aspects were much mediated by the mixture of Kali with an interesting French Christian myth. According to the story, the three Marys of the New Testament traveled to France where they were met by Sara, a Gypsy who assisted them in their landing. They baptized Sara and preached the gospel to her people. The Gypsies hold a celebration on May 24-25 each year at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, the small French village where the events are believed to have occurred. A statue to Sara was placed in the crypt of the church where the Gypsies have kept their annual vigil.

Clébert, Jean-Paul. The Gypsies. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1967. 282 pp.
Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986. 281 pp.