Goddess KALI Devi!!!

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Tantra Goddess

Author Unknown

 

FORMS OF KALI

 

Bhairavi is another well-known name for Kali. In the Kalika Purana text, the

names Kali

and Bhairavi interchange as if at a whim. Here Bhairavi is generally used when

referring

specifically to the tantric consort of Bhairava (wrathful Shiva),

especially when engaged in the " Great Rite " of sexual union.

 

In North India there is a tradition of calling twelve-year old virgin girls

Bhairavi when

they are worshipped as goddesses in tantric rites. In Hindu Tantra, followers of

the

Great Goddess are told to view all girls and women, of whatever age, race or

color, as

the visible embodiments of Her, at times worshipping with offerings of worldly

and

sensual things in the hope of getting boons, mystic powers (Siddhis) and

spiritual

liberation.

 

In North India, the Bhairavi form of the Great Goddess is most commonly depicted

as

elderly, a " Mata-ji " , emaciated, with eyes sunken, breasts shrivelled or

pendulous, hair

upstanding and unkept, but always ecstatic, " out of this world " and loaded with

mystic

initiatory power.

 

In the art and tradition of South India, Bhairavi is portrayed as voluptuous,

with firm

high breasts, small waist, wide hips, with only her fangs and upstanding hair

indicative

of her fierce " wild " nature. According to tantric lore, the Goddess Kali is the

highest

expression of Goddess Power in this, the Kali Yuga, the " Dark Age " , of egoism

and

materialism.

 

Dark Kali is paradoxical to those who do not know her well. She seems

unpredictable, yet

to her devotees she is always reliable. She reveals Herself to devotees through

the forms

of Nature and especially through women. She is the very essence of woman,

sensual,

pleasure-seeking, sometimes fickle, but in truth, nurturing. Like Nature, She

can seem

cruel, or can appear benign. She is the Dark Secret of the Universe, an

initiatory power,

the Ultimate Shakti.

 

Within the body, She is the Kundalini, the " Serpent Power " , the key to

liberation. In the

world, She is all women, all Nature. Kali Ma, the compassionate Primordial

Mother, can be

timeless and formless, young and old, exquisitely beautiful and alluring, as

well as

awesomely ugly and repugnant. She maifests as virgin and whore, young girl and

sensual

mature woman, a wrathful warrior queen and an old hag. She is always

compassionate to Her

devotees and cruel to enemies of cosmic truth. She is the Dark Doorway to

Liberation in

this Kali Age. Tantra shows the way.

 

Sometime in the mid to late 16th century, Krsnananda Agamavagisa, a Bengali

mystic (born

about 1500 AD.) had a powerful experience which caused him to formalize and tell

of a

" new " form of Kali. According to Dr S.C.Banerji, a noted historian of Tantra,

" Krsnananda

is credited with the conception, for the first time, of the Kali image current

in

Bengal. " It is said that Krsnananda Agamavagisa went to bathe in a river near a

cremation-ground (either at Tarapith or Bakreshwar, both in West Bengal). There

he

happened to disturb a dark-skinned tribal girl who, believing she was alone, had

stripped

nude and was washing herself using a discarded skull-cap from a nearby funeral

pyre. She

had her long black hair untied and was engrossed in her ablutions. Embarassed by

Krsnananda's sudden presence, she stuck out her tongue in shyness (a reflex

action still

done by village girls in India). Krsnananda, who had been trying to understand

how best

to comprehend the many varied forms of the Dark Goddess, and how to get a direct

vision

of Her, had a sudden spiritual insight. He viewed this tribal girl as a living

Kali, and

took the " vision " of her naked dark body, long dishevelled hair, extended tongue

and

skull in hand as a new and especially potent icon of the Great Goddess. Using

this

insight as his meditation, he became perfected. He had images made of this " new "

and

potent form of Kali and worshipped them as his deeper Self. He spread this

special form

of Kali far and wide. In about 1580 AD. he wrote a text known as the Tantrasara,

a

" Compendium of Tantras " , in which he gave the following description of the Dark

Goddess

and which forms the basis of the typical " Bengali " Kali icon:

" Possessed of complexion like the color of sapphire, blue like the sky,

extremely fierce,

defeating gods and demons, three- eyed, crying very loudly, decked with all

ornaments,

holding a human skull and a small sword, standing on the moon and sun. "

Krsnananda described other forms of Kali, named Daksina Kali, Guhya Kali, Bhadra

Kali,

Smashana Kali and Maha Kali - meaning " Right, from the South, Kali " , " Secret

Kali " ,

" Adamantine Kali " , " Cremation-ground Kali " and " Great Kali " , respectively. Of

these, the

form of Daksina Kali, also referred to as DaksinaKalika, is described by him

thus:

" Dishevelled hair, garland of human heads, face with long or projecting teeth,

four arms,

lower left holding a human head just severed, upper left holding a sword, lower

right

hand posed as if giving a boon, the upper right hand posed granting freedom from

fear,

deep dark complexion, naked, two corpses or arrows as ornaments in the two ears,

girdle

of the hands of corpses, three eyes, radiant like the morning sun, standing on

the chest

of Mahadeva(Shiva) lying like a corpse, surrounded by jackals. "

 

Yam Raj, the buffalo-horned tribal and modern Hindu ruler of death, is said to

live in

the South ( " Daksin " ). Daksina Kali is the " Remover of the fear of death " ,

remover of Yam

Raj, and Mahadeva (the " Great God " , Shiva, also known as Mahakala in his

wrathful form)

is Her consort. She sports on him. She is his energy, his dark muse, his Shakti.

Playfully and without any reserve, she takes her pleasure while he lies

intoxicated

beneath her. Sometimes she stands on him or dances around him, sometimes she

squats on

him, inserting his erect Lingam into her Yoni, in wild sexual union. She is the

active

power, time transcended. He is her support, depicted white of color, pure

consciousness,

penetrating deep into the unknowable. The Kamakalavilasa Tantra sums up their

relationship thus: " Shakti performs all the physical needs of Shiva. Bodiless

Shiva,

being of the nature of pure consciousness, must have Shakti for his body " . Kali

is the

Essence of Bliss, the Love-power. Shiva is Delight Incarnate, the root of all

new

creation. It is said that, " The whole universe is created by the Shakti of

Shiva " . In the

form of white Shiva and dark Shakti, Kali is to be viewed as Atma (the self) and

Shiva as

Jiva (the transcendental soul). Through spiritual practice, and by identifying

with this

vision, self and soul become one.

 

There are many many different forms of Kali. As Maha Kali the Great Goddess is

most

commonly visualised as ten-armed, ten-faced, with three eyes on each face, her

complexion

dark and shining. In this form she destroys the egoistic demons Madhu and

Kaitabha. This

is a form which emanated out of the dark goddess Durga.

As Kala Ratri, tawny-eyed, cruel and fond of war, wearing tiger and elephant

skins,

holding axe, noose, other weapons and a skull-bowl from which she drinks blood,

Kali is

the " Night of Destruction " at the termination of this world, the Female

Spiritual Power

always ready to defeat the last demons, so none can pollute the next world.

 

Forms of Bhadra Kali have sixteen arms, eighteen arms or one hundred arms, all

giving

protection to her devotees. Bhadra Kali is always visualised as huge, wearing a

three-pointed crown ornamented with the crescent moon, a snake about her neck,

her body

draped in red and her mood jolly. She pierces the body of a buffalo with her

lance, one

of her many weapons. Hindu tantrics believe that in this form She pervades the

whole

universe.

 

One of the most important places of goddess-pilgrimage and Kali worship is at

Kalighat,

in Calcutta. This is one of the " seats " of the Great Goddess, said to be the

place where

Her right toe fell to earth. Here Dark Kali is worshipped regularly, often with

sacrifices of specially selected goats and sheep, and with liquor. After such

rites the

offerings are viewed as special sacraments and are generally consumed by

devotees.

 

The Kalighat Kali icon is most extraordinary. It mainly consists of Her dark

head, with

three eyes exaggerated, Her mouth wide and showing an array of teeth, Her tongue

extending downwards and outwards. One cannot adequately describe the fervor of

Her

devotees at this particular Kali temple. The atmosphere here is always charged

with

mystery, magic and occult energy. Kali is considered to be the Guru or " teacher "

of the

ten Mahavidya goddesses of Hindu tantric tradition, all of which can best be

understood

as projections of Herself.

One of these is the fierce Tara, known as Ugra Tara, the " Saviouress " , depicted

in the

prime of her youth, short of stature, of dark blue color, her tongue protruding,

three-eyed, wearing a tiger-skin and a garland of human heads. She has four

arms, holds a

sword, has a small Buddha on her headdress and her left foot is on the chest of

Shiva,

lying beneath her like a corpse on a funeral pyre. In this form She is always

laughing,

absorbed in her own blissful emotion. This form of Tara, which is very close to

the form

of " Bengal Kali " , became especially associated with Tarapitth, a

pilgrimage-place and

great cremation-ground in West Bengal. Tarapitth was made famous by several

tantric

masters who stayed there, including the great 18th century mystic and poet

Ramprasad Sen,

the " crazy saint " Bamakhyepa, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo

and, more

recently, by Sri Durga Das Shastri.

 

The black goddess Matangi (one of the Mahavidyas) is another of the many potent

forms of

Kali. Matangi is dark black, her face fear-inspiring and angry, her three eyes

reddened

with intoxication, a crescent moon on her forehead. She can have from four to

eighteen

arms, holding various weapons, a trident and a pot filled with wine. She wears

fine red

silk clothes and is seated on a lion and/or a throne made of precious gems.

Matangi is

invoked by newly weds, and tantric Hindus believe that She bestows prosperity

and

happiness on her devotees. It is said that she originated from the dark fire of

Kali's

face.

 

Bhramari Devi is a dark goddess identified as another form of Kalika. Said to be

" as

brilliant as a million dark suns " , she is surrounded by black bees and holds

black bees

in the first of her hands, others of which are in the " boon-granting " and

" fear-allaying "

gestures. She destroys egoistic demons while her bees make the seed-Mantra

" Hring " .

 

The dark goddess Kali also became known and revered in Tibet. Known there as

Lhamo ( " God

Mother " ), several different forms of Her are in the Tibetan pantheon. As the

" Great

sickle-wielding all-powerful Queen Mother Goddess " (dPal ldan dmag zor rgyal

mo), She is

the Guardian Goddess of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital and She is the Chief

Protectress of

the Gelugpa sect of Lamaism, of which the Dalai Lama is the supreme hierarch.

She is the

wrathful Protector of the Buddhist Dharma in Tibet, visualised at the base of

the trunk

of the " lineage tree " of several sects. She is the only feminine deity among the

Buddhist

Dharmapalas, the Defenders of the Law of Buddhism and one of her names, Sri

Devi, tells

of her Hindu origin. A two-armed form of Lhamo/Kali is described in a Tibetan

text as

follows:

" The goddess is of dark blue hue, has one face, two hands, and rides on a mule.

With her

right hand she brandishes a huge sandalwood club adorned with a thunderbolt and

with her

left hand she holds in front of her breast the blood-filled skull of a child.

She wears a

flowing garment of black silk and a loincloth made of rough material. Her

ornaments are a

diadem of skulls, a garland of freshly-cut heads, a girdle of snakes, and bone

ornaments,

and her whole body is covered with the ashes of cremated corpses. She has three

eyes,

bares her fangs, and the hair on her head stands on end. She carries a sack of

karmic

things and a pair of dice. Among her retinue are countless black birds, black

dogs and

black sheep. "

 

In various Tibetan Lhamo sadhana texts her names are given as " Kali " , " Maha

Kali " ,

" Dhumavati Devi " , " Chandika Devi " , " Remati " and " Shankapali Devi " , all of which

are found

in Hindu Tantra.

 

In Hindu art and culture we encounter very young Kalis, pre-pubescent Kalis,

virgin

Kalis, menstruating Kalis, very sensual Kalis, wild Kalis, whore Kalis, mother

Kalis,

short Kalis, tall Kalis, old Kalis, emaciated Kalis, crone Kalis and Kalis of

different

colors, including white, red, yellow, blue, golden,transparent and multicolored.

So many

Kalis have manifested, all of which have a protective and transformative

function for

their devotees. These many different forms ultimately merge into the one radiant

primordial blackness of Kali Ma, the Divine Mother, the Great Matriarch,

Ancestress of

this entire Universe. Poems, songs, hymns, art-works, temples, dances, mystic

spells and

Tantras have been composed in Kali's praise, to attract, please and glorify Her.

True

tantric devotees always have Her in mind, hold Her in their hearts, see Her in

everything.

 

Jai Ma Kali! Jago Ma!

" Who can explain Your play, Divine Mother? What do You take, what give back?

You give

and take, again and again.... "

" For You, dawn and dusk are identical. Nothing stops Your perfection; You give

precisely

what's

deserved. "

(Song of Ramprasad Sen)

___

 

 

 

 

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