Kali

Myth and origin

Kali emerges in the late Vedic and early Puranic literature, gathering into herself older traditions of fierce mother-goddesses, tribal and village deities, and the Vedic Ratri (night). She first appears systematically in the great Shakta text Devi Mahatmya (also called Durga Saptashati, c. 5th-6th century CE), where she springs forth from the furrowed brow of the goddess Durga to slay the demon Raktabija—a demon whose every drop of spilled blood produces a clone, defeated only when Kali catches each drop on her tongue and devours each new emanation. From this origin in righteous battle, her cult grew enormously through the medieval period.

The chief sources are the Devi Mahatmya, the various Shakta and Tantra texts (Mahanirvana Tantra, Kalika Purana, Yogini Tantra, the Bengali Brihat Tantrasara), and the medieval Bengali devotional poetry of Ramprasad Sen (1718-1775) and Kamalakanta, whose intimate love-songs to Kali as "Ma" (Mother) transformed her cult. The mystical experiences of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836-1886) at the Dakshineswar temple gave her global resonance through his disciple Vivekananda's mission to the West. The Tantric currents of Kashmir and Bengal elaborated sophisticated philosophical and yogic systems centred on Kali as supreme reality.

Attributes and stories

You recognise Kali by her dark, almost black complexion (the colour of the void, of time, of the womb); her wild dishevelled hair; her tongue protruding red from her mouth (often explained as her shock at finding her foot on Shiva's body, or as her thirst for the blood of demons); her three eyes; her garland of fifty or fifty-one severed heads (the Sanskrit alphabet, the seed-syllables of language); her skirt of severed arms; her four (or more) arms bearing a sword, a freshly cut demon head, the gestures of fearlessness and boon-giving, or in fiercer forms a trident, a bowl, a noose. She is often shown standing or dancing on the prostrate, white or ash-coloured body of Shiva, who lies inert while she dances—Shakti without Shiva is action, Shiva without Shakti is corpse.

Her foundational myth is the slaying of Raktabija in the Devi Mahatmya. The demon Raktabija ("seed of blood") cannot be defeated because every drop of blood spilled from him produces a new identical demon. The goddess Durga, fighting him in vain, knits her brow in frustration, and from her forehead springs the black Kali, who roars with her enormous tongue spread wide. As Durga strikes Raktabija, Kali catches every drop of blood on her tongue and devours every replicating demon as fast as he appears. She drinks the original Raktabija dry. But Kali is so intoxicated by her victory-dance that she threatens to destroy the cosmos; Shiva flings himself beneath her feet, and only when she sees her husband under her foot does she stop—the famous iconographic moment, tongue out in mortified shock. The legend of Kali's lovers and the Tantric "left-hand" worship of her in cremation grounds extend this profound paradox: she is fierce mother, lover, destroyer, and liberator.

Modern reception

Kali has been reclaimed in modern feminist and goddess spirituality more than perhaps any other deity. Mary Daly, Audre Lorde, the global Goddess movement, and countless practitioners have drawn upon her as image of fierce feminine power, sovereignty over death, and refusal of patriarchal pacification. The publications of David Kinsley (Hindu Goddesses, 1986), Rachel Fell McDermott's translations of Bengali Kali-songs, and Sally Kempton's contemporary teaching have brought her to a Western audience. She appears in films, novels (Neil Gaiman's American Gods), and games, sometimes accurately and sometimes through Orientalist distortion. Joseph Campbell wrote extensively on her.

In contemporary practice Kali is worshipped through mantras (especially the famous Krim bija mantra and the Mahakali mantra), through Kali Puja (the great festival in autumn, especially in Bengal, on the new moon of Kartik month, coinciding with Diwali in other regions), through temple pilgrimage (Dakshineswar, Kalighat, Kamakhya), and through Tantric meditation on the dissolution of forms. Astrologically she corresponds to Pluto (death-rebirth, the underworld, transformation), to Saturn (time, dissolution), and to the dark Moon. The mythological deity test can reveal whether her fierce face turns toward you. Continue with Shiva, Lakshmi, and Hel.

Symbolic depth

In the tarot, Kali corresponds most clearly to Death (XIII) as the great consumer of forms, to Strength (XI/VIII) in her demon-slaying ferocity, to The Tower (XVI) as the destroyer of false structures, and to Judgement (XX) as the liberator who frees by destroying illusion. The High Priestess (II) carries her hidden mysteries. On the Kabbalistic Tree of Life she resonates with Binah (the dark mother, the great dissolving womb) and with Geburah (severity, righteous destruction).

Jungian readings make Kali one of the most important images of the Terrible Mother archetype, the devouring feminine that orthodox spirituality often represses or sanitises. To meet her is to face the truth that the mother who gives life also takes it back, that time consumes all forms, that the Self contains a destroying dimension. Her shadow—if she has one—is the danger of mistaking her ferocity for cruelty, or of stopping at the cremation-ground without recognising the liberation beyond. To work with Kali is to befriend death not as enemy but as mother, to surrender ego-structures she is dancing to dissolve, and to discover the love that runs through her terrifying form. Return to the main glossary.

Also known as

• Kālī
• Mahakali
• Kalika
• Adya
• Bhavatarini
• Dakshina Kali
• Smashana Kali