A Kali in Every Woman: Motherhood and the Dark Goddess Archetype

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Wherever there's a woman in any home

doing her work

screening her smiles with her veil,

she is You, Ma;

she is you, Black Goddess.

 

Carefully rising with the light of dawn

to attend with softened hands

to household chores,

she is You, Ma;

she is You, Black Goddess.

 

The woman who gives alms, makes vows, does worship, reads

scriptures

all correctly and with a smile

who drapes her sari over the child on her lap

soothing its hunger with a lullaby,

she is You, Ma;

she is You, Black Goddess.

 

She can't be anyone else;

Mother, sister, housewife

all are You.

 

- Ramprasad (c.a. 1718-1775)

 

It is well established in the canons of Indian thought that every

woman mirrors in herself the divine feminine. The above piece of

poetry goes further and specifically informs us that every female has

in herself the Goddess Kali. At first appearances this comes as a

surprising shock, not in the least because of Kali's horrific

demeanor. Envisioned as totally naked, the visual tales of her

terrible form do not end with her dense black color or with the skirt

made up of decapitated hands she adorns in her middle, making a

mockery of all conventional images of reassurance a goddess is

associated with. Further frightening is the necklace she vulgarly

hangs around her neck. This is no ordinary necklace. It is made up of

heads she has severed from the torsos of beings who were once as much

living as you and I are at this moment. And the horrors of horrors,

she stands in an arrogant gesture of triumph, one leg placed

haughtily over the chest of Shiva, one of the most powerful deities

of the Hindu pantheon, and who also happens to be her husband.

 

The truth behind the mystery of Kali, it seems, is to not be found by

a conventional appraisal of her physical appearance. Rather a

faithful analysis of the deep symbolism underlying this mighty

Goddess is required to penetrate her innermost essence.

 

Traditional opinion is unanimous in accepting the figure lying under

Kali's feet as being that of her husband. Here is what the same poet

has to say about this aspect of her iconography:

 

It's not Shiva

At Mother's feet.

Only liars say that.

 

The ancients wrote clearly

that

while killing demons,

saving the gods from their fix,

Ma stepped on a demon child

fallen to the ground.

At the touch of Her feet

the demon boy changed;

suddenly he was Shiva

On the battlefield.

 

As a good wife

would She ever

put Her feet

on Her husband's chest?

No, she wouldn't.

But a servant is different:

Ramprasad pleads-

place those fear-dispelling feet

on my lotus heart.

 

In this striking example, Ramprasad the greatest of Kali's devotees

ever, saves her against the accusations that she deviates from the

path of a true Hindu wife by subjugating her spouse. In a glorious

moment of poetic imagery he establishes in the goddess a power that

is capable of transforming a villainous demon into Shiva, the purest

of all gods. Why transform this evil being into her husband? She

could have changed him into any 'pure ' soul, why grant him the

status of her spouse? Why indeed? This may lead us to theorize that

by meditating upon the benevolent goddess we, who are the wickedest

among all, can achieve this positive transformation. This suggests

that in addition to approaching the goddess as a child, she can also

be courted as a husband. It must however be stressed here that there

is no sexuality involved in this purely emotional process. Beginning

her worship as a child we may ultimately evolve into her husband.

 

This process mirrors the rhythmic pattern each of our lives follow,

i.e. starting off as a child to our mother and gradually developing

into husbands to our wives. Accepting that duality exists in nature,

such a hypothesis indeed projects the male in an extremely positive

light. But it is the female of the species who comes out with honors

here, by resolutely establishing that when they are wives and when

they progress to being mothers, Kali forms an integral part of their

characteristic buildup.

 

This positive affirmation does not however explain Kali's blackness

as complementary to her motherhood. Things fall into place when we

recall how creation manifested itself at the beginning of the world,

when nothing material existed. This primordial state was dark. As is

Kali, as is the womb, dark and mysterious. Esoterically speaking

black is not a color, but the absence of color. It is what remains

when all colors merge into each other, or in other words the fount

which has the

potentiality to give birth to all the colors of life. Another poet

says in this context:

 

Is my Mother Kali really black?

People say Kali is black,

But my heart doesn't agree.

If She's black,

How can she light up the world?

Sometimes my Mother is white,

Sometimes yellow, blue, and red.

I cannot fathom Her.

My whole life has passed

trying.

 

She is Matter,

Then Spirit,

Then complete Void.

 

- Kamalakanta Bhattacharya (1769-1821)

 

 

It is interesting to note here that in Egypt too, blackness is

associated with a positive symbolism, standing for the mothering

darkness of germination. Hence every woman by virtue of being a

potential mother and possessing the dark, cavernous womb which grants

her this capability, is a Kali.

 

Strangely enough, scarcely having crossed one hurdle in the positive

interpretation of the Kali icon as a creative matrix, we are

confronted with another contradictory feature, here namely the

necklace of skulls ornamenting her beautiful neck. Indeed it is a

symbol of death. Believers in reincarnation maintain that before it

is invested with a physical body the soul of a man is free and fully

alive since it exists in the spiritual world, which is it's true

sphere of existence. When it is conceived in the mother's interior,

its death begins. The womb is thus the symbol of the tomb. Or for

those of us, who prefer to be

cremated, there are the fires which surround Kali, our archetypal

mother. Thus our physical birth is in a way our spiritual death.

 

Equally enigmatic is the short skirt encircling her tender waist. The

amputated hands which are strung together to form this garment

represent for her devotees the ultimate act of devotion. This act

consists in severing of all attachment to karma and meditating upon

Kali as the ultimate refuge. The path to salvation in this belief

lies not in following the karmic way but rather giving up one's

complete self in the worship of the Goddess. As Ramprasad says:

 

Oh my Mind, worship Kali

any way you want-

just repeat the mantra

given to you

day and night.

 

Think that you're prostrating

as you lie on your bed,

and meditating on the Mother

while you sleep.

When you go about the town, imagine

you're circumambulating Kali Ma.

Each sound that enters your ears

is one of Kali's mantras,

Each letter of the fifty

around Her neck

bears Her name.

 

Ramprasad says, astonished,

The Goddess Full of Brahman is in every creature.

When you eat,

think that you're making an offering

to Kali Ma.

 

Kali contains within herself all our actions and the results which

ensue thereof. Our hands are the instruments through which we carry

out our karma, believing ourselves to be the masters of our own

destinies. The goddess allows no such misconception, as she is the

giver of life and also its terminator. It is in her that all acts

originate and it is into her that they finally dissolve. This is the

symbolism implied behind the carelessly flaring skirt, hobbling with

the dynamic goddess, and arguably the earliest mini skirt in history.

 

Thus even the humblest acts we perform during the course of our daily

lives is to be viewed as an offering to the Great Mother who is

indeed our sustenance and nourisher, both spiritually and materially.

Rightly then, one of Ramprasad's poems is entitled

 

'Satisfy Every Level of Our Hunger O Mother!' It runs like this:

 

O Mother of the Universe!

You who provide basic sustenance

And subtle nourishment of all creatures!

Please feed us, Holy Mother!

Satisfy every level of our hunger!

 

I know the mother always feeds her hungry child,

Regardless of its foolishness or carelessness.

Goddess Kali, grant the child who sings this song

Your supreme blessing of total illumination.

Today is the most auspicious day!

Please, Mother, do not delay!

 

Goddess Kali, my pangs of hunger for reality

Are becoming unbearable.

Mother! Mother! Mother!

You are the longing and the longed for!

You cannot refuse your child's earnest prayer!

 

The question however remains of Kali's nudity. It is Jesus who points

us in the correct direction regarding this issue. In the 'Gospel of

Thomas,' he says, in reply to a disciple's question about when he

would come again: "When you strip yourselves without being ashamed.

When you take off clothes and lay them at your feet like little

children and trample on them."

 

Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese-American philosopher, elaborates:

 

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the

unbeautiful.

 

And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find

in them a harness and a chain.

 

Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin

and less of your raiment,

 

For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in

the wind.

 

Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the

unclean.

 

And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter

and a fouling of the mind?

 

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the

winds long to play with your hair.

 

(From 'The Prophet')

 

Ramprasad concedes that ordinary mortals like himself (and us) could

be bedazzled by these stark truths. He expresses similar sentiments,

and at the same time grants them the high ground of abstract

philosophy:

 

O sublime Goddess! O naked oneness!

What is the meaning of your nakedness?

Are you shameless, Divine Lady?

Yet even when discarding

royal silks, and golden ornaments

for earrings, bracelets, and anklets

fashioned from human bone,

you retain the dignity of bearing

suited to the daughter of a king.

 

What wild customs you follow, Ma Kali,

trampling on the chest of your noble husband.

You are the naked intensity of divine creativity,

while your consort is naked transcendence.

 

O Mother of the Universe,

this child is terrified by your naked truth,

your unthinkable blackness, your sheer infinity.

Please cover your reality with a gentle veil.

Why have you thrown away the necklace of pearls

that enhances your divine beauty

Wearing instead this awesome garland of heads,

Freshly severed by the sword of non duality?

 

 

 

Truth is not complicated. An innocent child is untrained in the

manners of the world but this does not deprive him from living a

zestful and complete life, albeit his/her mother forms an integral

part of his unified circle of existence. This is what prompted

Wordsworth to say that 'the child is the father of man.' A child is

imbued with the quality of intuitive wisdom, which is the

undifferentiating intelligence that existed before the world was

created. Kali's nudity exhibits this free state of archetypal bliss,

of which ecstasy is a characterizing attribute.

 

Conclusion:

 

Elizabeth U. Harding an intrepid Kali adventurer and fan, describes

in her memoirs how laborious and stressful it is to reach the inner

sanctum of Kali at the Dakshineswar Temple at Calcutta, owing to the

regular galore of devotees who generally swarm her temple. After

having reached the inner hall housing the sanctum sanctorum this is

what she says:

 

"Out of sheer awe and admiration one's voice automatically turns into

a whisper - yet, there is nothing intimidating about this place."

 

Ushered into the presence of the deity our voices automatically drop

to a whisper, as a tribute of respect to the divine presence. Finally

face to face with Kali herself, this is what transpires in the

author's mind:

 

'But when one finally stands before Kali, time seems to stand still.

Everything stops. The people, the noise - all is mysteriously gone.

One stares with wide eyes, forgetting even to blink. All one sees is

Kali and nothing else. Overwhelmed with feeling one whispers, "I love

you." And from within she replies, "You do so much more for I am the

source of your being!"

 

This is the spirit in which to approach Kali. The Great Goddess

herself will then reveal her mysteries for all of us, solving in the

process, the eternal questions of life.

 

 

 

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References and Further Reading:

 

Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols:

London, 1999.

 

Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet: New Delhi, 2002.

 

Harding. Elizabeth U, Kali The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar:

Delhi, 1998.

 

Hixon, Lee. Mother of the Universe (Visions of the Goddess and

Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment): Wheaton, 1994.

 

McDermott, Rachel Fell. Mother of My Heart, Daughter of My Dreams

(Kali and Uma in the Devotional Poetry of Bengal): Oxford, 2001.

 

Mcdermott, Rachel Fell. Singing to the Goddess (Poems to Kali and

Uma from Bengal): Oxford, 2001.

 

Tresidder, Jack. The Hutchinson Dictionary of Symbols: Oxford,

1997.

 

Walker, Benjamin. Encyclopedia of Esoteric Man, London, 1977.

 

 

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Exoticindia.com/newsletter. October 2002 issue

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