Mohanty - The Book of Kali

The Book of Kali

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The Book of Muinuddin Chishti

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The Book of Vishnu

The Book of
Kali

SEEMA MOHANTY

PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2004

Published in Penguin Books 2009

Text copyright Seema Mohanty 2004

Illustrations copyright Devdutt Pattanaik 2004

Illustrations by Devdutt Pattanaik

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-01-4306-764-1

This digital edition published in 2011.

e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-150-5

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H er outstretched tongue distinguishes her from all other goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. Her nakedness, unbound hair, association with blood and gore, and unbridled sexuality challenge conventional ideas of divinity. So much so that to the uninformed eye Kali appears less as a manifestation of the divine, and more as a bloodthirsty ogressa patron of thugs and sorcerers.

In the quest to understand Kali it is essential to appreciate the Hindu concept of the divine. Hindus visualize the divine in various formshuman, animal, plant and mineral. Each form, with its respective narrative and rituals, serves as a gateway to realizing the ultimate unmanifest godhead. Worshippers of Shiva and Vishnu, the two most popular male manifestations of the divine, believe that the male form of the divine represents spiritual reality, while the female form symbolizes material reality. Goddess worshippers, however, associate both material and spiritual realities with the female form. To them, Kali is both Goddess or Devi (the female divinity, the supreme manifestation of the divine) and goddess (one of the several incarnations of Devi). As Goddess, Kali embodies both spiritual and material realities, the totality of nature, as she creates, sustains and destroys the world. As goddess, she represents only that aspect of material reality which is wild and untamed, and complements Gauri, the radiant and gentle goddess who represents the domesticated and tamed manifestation of nature.

Worship of the Goddess in India is as ancient as civilization itself, and has its roots in the belief that the earth is a living being that nourishes all animate objects. The most widely accepted theory states that when the nomadic cattle-herding Aryans were assimilated into the settled agricultural communities of the Indian subcontinent almost 4000 years ago, the male-dominated, sky-gazing Vedic deities mingled and merged with the local female-dominated, earthbound, Dravidian (some may say pre-Aryan tantrik) divinities. From this fusion rose the goddesses of India who populate not just the Hindu pantheon but also Jain and Buddhist mythologies.

It is difficult to trace the history of Kali worship in India. Even before the name Kali was first documented in scriptures, there were references to goddesses (and demonesses) that allude to Kali. For example, in the Rig Samhita there is Nirriti, a dark goddess associated with death, who was feared and needed to be appeased. In the Jaiminya Brahmana, there is a verse celebrating the triumph of Indra over Dirgha-jihvi, a long-tongued and lascivious ogress, who thirsted for the divine drink Soma.

It is also difficult to trace the extent of Kali worship in India. In villages across India, goddesses are classified as hot and cold. Hot goddesses are wild and angry, threatening communities with drought and epidemic unless appeased by blood sacrifice. Cold goddesses are gentle and domestic, who nurture communities with love and tenderness. Hot goddesses like Bhagavati of Kerala and Yellamma of Karnataka are sometimes referred to as Kali but do not have the characteristic outstretched tongue. At the same time there are goddesses such as Korravai, the naked Tamil goddess of war, and Chamunda, the emaciated goddess of crematoriums, who share Kalis association with blood sacrifices, death and exorcism but do not share her name.