Goddess Kali

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Kali

Kali makes her 'official' debut in the Devi-Mahatmya, where she is said to have

emanated from the brow of Goddess Durga (slayer of demons) during one of the

battles between the divine and anti-divine forces.

 

Kali is represented as a Black woman with four arms; in one hand she has a

sword, in another the head of the demon she has slain, with the other two she is

encouraging her worshippers. Her only clothing is a girdle made of dead men's

hands, and her tongue protrudes from her mouth.

 

Kali's fierce appearances have been the subject of extensive descriptions in

several earlier and modern works. Though her fierce form is filled with awe-

inspiring symbols, their real meaning is not what it first appears- they have

equivocal significance:

 

Kali's blackness symbolizes her all-embracing, comprehensive nature, because

black is the color in which all other colors merge; black absorbs and dissolves

them. 'Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear

in her' (Mahanirvana Tantra). Or black is said to represent the total absence of

color, again signifying the nature of Kali as ultimate reality. This in Sanskrit

is named as nirguna (beyond all quality and form). Either way, Kali's black

color symbolizes her transcendence of all form.

 

A devotee poet says:

 

"Is Kali, my Divine Mother, of a black complexion?

She appears black because She is viewed from a distance;

but when intimately known She is no longer so.

The sky appears blue at a distance, but look at it close by

and you will find that it has no colour.

The water of the ocean looks blue at a distance,

but when you go near and take it in your hand,

you find that it is colourless."

 

.... Ramakrishna Paramhansa (1836-86)

 

Kali's nudity has a similar meaning. In many instances she is described as

garbed in space or sky clad. In her absolute, primordial nakedness she is free

from all covering of illusion. She is Nature (Prakriti in Sanskrit), stripped of

'clothes'. It symbolizes that she is completely beyond name and form, completely

beyond the illusory effects of maya (false consciousness). Her nudity is said to

represent totally illumined consciousness, unaffected by maya. Kali is the

bright fire of truth, which cannot be hidden by the clothes of ignorance. Such

truth simply burns them away.

 

She is full-breasted; her motherhood is a ceaseless creation. Each skull of her

garland of fifty human skulls, represents one of the fifty letters of the

Sanskrit alphabet. She wears a girdle of severed human hands- hands that are the

principal instruments of work and so signify the action of karma. Thus the

binding effects of this karma have been overcome, severed, as it were, by

devotion to Kali. She has blessed the devotee by cutting him free from the cycle

of karma. Her white teeth are symbolic of purity (Sans. Sattva), and her lolling

tongue which is red dramatically depicts the fact that she consumes all things

and denotes the act of tasting or enjoying what society regards as forbidden,

i.e. her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's "flavors".

 

Kali's four arms represent the complete circle of creation and destruction,

which is contained within her. She represents the inherent creative and

destructive rhythms of the cosmos. Two of her hands, making the mudras of "fear

not" and conferring boons, represent the creative aspect of Kali, while the

other two hands, holding a bloodied sword and a severed head represent her

destructive aspect. The bloodied sword and severed head symbolize the

destruction of ignorance and the dawning of knowledge. The sword is the sword of

knowledge, that cuts the knots of ignorance and destroys false consciousness

(the severed head). Kali opens the gates of freedom with this sword, having cut

the eight bonds that bind human beings. Finally her three eyes represent the

sun, moon, and fire, with which she is able to observe the three modes of time:

past, present and future. This attribute is also the origin of the name Kali,

which is the feminine form of 'Kala', the Sanskrit term for Time.

 

The image of a recumbent Shiva lying under the feet of Kali represents Shiva as

the passive potential of creation and Kali as his Shakti. The generic term

Shakti denotes the Universal feminine creative principle and the energizing

force behind all male divinity including Shiva. Shakti is known by the general

name Devi, from the root 'div', meaning to shine. She is the Shining One, who is

given different names in different places and in different appearances, as the

symbol of the life-giving powers of the Universe. It is she that powers him.

This Shakti is expressed as the i in Shiva's name. Without this i, Shiva becomes

Shva, which in Sanskrit means a corpse. Thus suggesting that without his Shakti,

Shiva is powerless or inert.

 

Kali's boon is won when man confronts or accepts her and the realities she

dramatically conveys to him. The image of Kali, in a variety of ways, teaches

man that pain, sorrow, decay, death, and destruction are not to be overcome or

conquered by denying them or explaining them away. Pain and sorrow are woven

into the texture of man's life so thoroughly that to deny them is ultimately

futile. For man to realize the fullness of his being, for man to exploit his

potential as a human being, he must finally accept this dimension of existence.

Kali's boon is freedom, the freedom of the child to revel in the moment, and it

is won only after confrontation or acceptance of death. To ignore death, to

pretend that one is physically immortal, to pretend that one's ego is the center

of things, is to provoke Kali's mocking laughter. To confront or accept death,

on the contrary, is to realize a mode of being that can delight and revel in the

play of the gods. To accept one's mortality is to be able to let go, to be able

to sing, dance, and shout. Kali is Mother to her devotees not because she

protects them from the way things really are but because she reveals to them

their mortality and thus releases them to act fully and freely, releases them

from the incredible, binding web of "adult" pretense, practicality, and

rationality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

You are mentioning Shamshana Kalika, there are multiple forms of Kali ten Primal

ones which have totally different meaning, devi Kali comes from atharvaveda and

rgveda as well.

 

Devi Kali also comes from the Parasha Tantra and Bhairava tantra both predating

the Devi Mahatmaya, Kali puja and the tantra of Kali relates mostly to kaula

which is the oldest tantric sect known to man.

 

I would agree about the symbolism but it also depends on what tantra or vedanta

you follow for her perception changes dramatically through each scope. Devi Kali

is nude for she teaches us to strip away maya in thought.

 

Maya is what binds all, by stripping it away you attain nirvakalpa samadhi, Kali

is the goddess of the kundalini, she is the preciding female diety of the

Kundalini and dominates both the surya and chandra nadi.

 

That is why she is said to be the greatest of the gods, Kali is beyond the

comprehension of man, she makes this clear in her decapitated form of mother

chinnamasta.

 

Think of her as mother and nothing else, that is the best way.

 

 

 

 

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