Kali: the Dark Mother
Who the goddess Kali is, the meaning of her fierce appearance, her birth in battle, why she stands on Shiva, and her worship as a loving mother, especially in Bengal.
Kali is one of the most striking and powerful goddesses in Hinduism. Dark-skinned, wild-haired and wearing a garland of severed heads, she can appear terrifying. Yet millions of Hindus, especially in Bengal, worship her as a loving mother who protects her children, destroys evil and frees devotees from fear and ignorance. She is a fierce form of the Goddess, closely related to Parvati and Durga.
The name Kali is the feminine form of kala, which means both “black” and “time”. Kali is time itself, which devours all things, and the darkness from which all things emerge.
Kali's birth in battle
Kali's best-known appearance is in the Devi Mahatmya. During the Goddess's war against the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha, the demon generals Chanda and Munda attacked her. Her face darkened with anger and from her forehead sprang Kali, gaunt and terrible, with a sword and a noose. She destroyed the demons, and for this was named Chamunda.
Later in the same battle, the Goddess faced Raktabija, a demon who could reproduce himself from every drop of his blood that touched the ground. Kali spread her tongue across the battlefield and drank his blood before it could fall, allowing him to be destroyed.
Why does Kali stand on Shiva?
In the most common image of Kali, known as Dakshina Kali, she stands on the body of Shiva, who lies beneath her. A popular Bengali story explains that, after her victory, Kali danced so wildly that the world began to shake. To calm her, Shiva lay down among the slain. When she stepped on her husband, she realised what she had done and stuck out her tongue in embarrassment.
Tantric traditions give a philosophical interpretation: Shiva represents pure, passive consciousness and Kali represents shakti, the active energy without which consciousness cannot act. In this view, Shiva without Shakti is lifeless, a shava (corpse).
The meaning of her appearance
- Dark skin: the infinite, formless reality in which all colours and forms dissolve.
- Garland of heads: often explained as the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, the source of all language, or as the egos she has cut away.
- Skirt of severed arms: the actions and karma from which she frees her devotees.
- Sword and severed head: the destruction of ignorance and ego.
- Raised right hands, in the gestures of fearlessness and blessing: reassurance that she protects those who turn to her.
- Cremation ground: her traditional home, symbolising the end of attachment to the body.
Kali as Mother
For her devotees, Kali's fierceness is directed at evil, not at them. Bengal developed a rich tradition of devotional poetry addressed to Kali as Mother, led by the eighteenth-century poet Ramprasad Sen, whose songs are still sung today. The nineteenth-century mystic Ramakrishna served as priest of the Kali temple at Dakshineswar, near Kolkata, and spoke of her with childlike love.
Worship of Kali
Kali's great festival is Kali Puja, held in Bengal, Assam and Odisha on the new-moon night of Diwali. Images of the goddess are worshipped through the night. Famous Kali temples include the Dakshineswar temple and the Kalighat temple in Kolkata; the city's name is often said to derive from Kalighat.
Kali has sometimes been misrepresented in the West, for example in nineteenth-century accounts of the “Thuggee” bandits and in popular films. For Hindus who worship her, she is a compassionate mother who strips away illusion and grants liberation.
Sources and further reading
- David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses (University of California Press, 1986), chapter 8.
- Rachel Fell McDermott and Jeffrey J. Kripal (eds), Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West (University of California Press, 2003).
- Rachel Fell McDermott, Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal (Oxford University Press, 2001).