How a goddess and her worshippers challenge established ideas around women, patriarchy and feminism
Her hair is tossed wild, she wears a garland of skulls around her neck and a skirt of severed arms around her waist. Her lolling tongue drips blood, her skin is the black of a moonless night. The goddess Kali stands nude; raised axe in hand, always ready for battle. No matter where she is found; in temples, in altars at home, in calendar art and in the countless digital impressions floating around cyberspace, Kali cuts a bodacious figure, unflinching in her gaze and unapologetic about her posture. Shame, shock or embarrassment, if any, lies entirely in the eyes of the beholder.
In a country where the visual depiction of goddesses is almost always bejewelled and benign, even when they are not particularly benevolent, Kali smashes the prototype—both in terms of her appearance which is fearful and in her habits that reinforce her association with the macabre. How does one unpack the story of such a goddess, whose emergence and subsequent veneration, both take place within a male-dominant, patriarchal pantheon? And how does the goddess make her place in the world today?
Kali, according to the legends about her in the Devi Mahatmya (composed sometime around the 5-6 CE), was born on the battlefield. She emerged from the brow of another goddess, Durga, who had been sent by the gods to rid the world of the Asura kings Shumbha and Nishumbha. Having vanquished them after a long and tiring battle, Durga found herself being harangued by two loudmouth Asura generals, Canda and Munda. They began wearing her down, physically, and also psychologically by hurling a slew of sexual slurs and questioning her capabilities as a warrior. Durga lost her composure, and from her darkened brow or her fury, sprang Kali.
Bloodthirsty and ruthless, Kali blazed through the enemy lines, decapitating Canda and Munda and leaving behind a trail of skulls, as she decimated the rest. Kali was summoned again in the course of the battle, when Durga faced off against the demon Raktabeeja. He had the power to recreate himself whenever a drop of his blood touched the ground, thereby creating a million clones every time Durga and her aides plunged their swords into his large frame. Desperate, Durga turned to Kali for help. Kali swooped in and swallowed all the blood-born Raktabeejas, and sucked the blood dry off the original demon. She did not stop at that though and continued her killing spree, until the gods that had sought her intervention, had to appeal to Shiva to calm her down.
Kali’s first appearance, in the form that she is worshipped today, is in the Devi Mahatmya, but she does exist earlier in the Mundaka Upanishad, where Kali is one of the seven tongues of Agni. She is then found in Tantric rituals and practices (8th to 16th CE) and later still, she becomes a part of devotional traditions where Kali is addressed as Mother by her devotees.
In all the stories about her, through the different ages and through different forms of worship, Kali functions as an independent force. She looks terrifying and wreaks terror upon her enemies. Her identity is never subsumed by the forms she takes (as different goddesses), or by the gods she appears alongside or by mortals who worship her.
In a story in the Mahabhagwata Purana (a devotional text that is dated at anywhere between the 10th to 16th century), Kali is born as Sati to Daksha and Prasuti who have been blessed with the goddess as their daughter as a reward for their long and arduous penance. When it was time to get her married, Daksha organised a swayamvar (an ancient practice where the bride chose her husband from a room full of suitors), where he invited all major gods, but not Shiva. However, Sati having already chosen Shiva as her husband, bypassed her father’s wishes and married him.
Sati’s obduracy is also in play against her husband. Soon after their marriage, the couple faced a crisis when Daksha, angered by his daughter’s choice, organised a large yagna (fire sacrifice) at his palace but did not invite Shiva. Angry, Shiva forbade Sati from going to the yagna too. But she refused to obey his orders and then punished both father (by beheading him and hurling herself into the fire) and husband (by turning him insane with grief at her death).
Daksha and Shiva faced the wrath of the goddess for failing to recognise her power. Even when born as Sati, in a form that is vastly different from that of the Kali of the crematoria and the battlefield, the goddess is aware of her strength and does not relinquish her independence.
Kali’s origin, and her role in the battles against the Asuras, are all part of the ancient goddess traditions of the subcontinent, where the devi is epitomized as shakti, a word that is loosely translated as strength. But there is more to the idea than brute force or spiritual tenacity. As the stories about Kali demonstrate, shakti is also the freedom of spirit and action that all natural forces are endowed with.
Even though Kali is part of the devi tradition, she does not quite fit the mould. She is not made by or associated with the male gods and is therefore unlike Durga (created by male gods), Parvati (wife of Shiva), Saraswati (born from Brahma’s mind or Brahma’s wife), Lakhsmi (Vishnu’s wife). She is not a role model for the goddess/woman in epic and folk literature either; Sita, Draupadi, Manasa and many others, may bear the strength of Kali or call upon her in their times of need, but they are not like her.
She is also unlike Greek goddesses such as Hera, whose violent temper is often shown as hysteria or Nordic goddesses such as Freyja, whose power is constantly subverted by the male gods in the pantheon or ridiculed in sexual terms. The closest that Kali identifies with is the Egyptian goddess Sekhmet, who also goes on a bloodthirsty rampage through the ancient world, but her actions begin and end with a command from Ra, the sun god.
Kali cuts a powerful figure, unlike any other in the ancient world, in control of her voice and persona. She does not let anyone—be it the other gods in the pantheon or her devotees—dictate terms on how she ought to dress, eat, drink and live her life. Kali is not bound by the laws that govern social order and she fights her battles with uncontrollable frenzy. In this aspect, even though her fear-inducing appearance and her close associations with death and gore are not synchronous with modern sensibilities, Kali carries much more agency than many independent and powerful women do today.
According to David Kinsley, the late professor of Religion at McMaster University, Canada who has authored several books on Kali, “the goddess is prakriti (Nature) uncontrolled.” He writes in Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Divine Feminine in Hindu Religious Tradition that Kali is growth, decay, death and rebirth completely unrefined.
There is a paradox in the image of Kali—a woman shown in terrifying form—and also in her worship where her worshippers, largely male, invoke her as a mother, according to Vrinda Dalmiya, professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Hawaii Manoa. She writes in a paper titled Loving Paradoxes: A Feminist Reclamation of the Goddess Kali that Kali provides us with a novel way of seeing the divine feminine. Etymologically, Kali is the feminine for Kala. Kala is also understood as time and that stands for decay and death. But she is also Nature. She is naked and gross but also a mother, because she is the creator of the universe and predates everything.
Even though Kali is an embodiment of extremes—chaos and order, oppressor and emancipator and so on, she is not framed by binaries. She is not defined only by the darkness in her, nor is she redeemed by the light. Her terrifying appearance or her cannibalistic predilection notwithstanding, she is also part of mother and consort goddesses such as Durga, Sati, Parvati and Ganga. In her ability to walk difficult and contradictory tracks, without camouflage, Kali presents an amazingly complex idea of the feminine.
It is important to know, however, that the layered web of ideas that define Kali cannot be navigated with a single map. Nor can she be fully understood, or considered as a symbol of feminine power, without factoring in the context of her emergence and worship.
For instance, many writers, especially those trained in the traditions of religious studies in the West are taken in by Kali’s gaunt, skull-adorned nudity. They find it difficult to reconcile her ‘demonic’ appearance with the idea of the divine. Thus, Kali is termed as a goddess who lives outside the pale of mainstream social structures, worshipped by bandits and outlaws. Her appearance also becomes the critical point of reference for feminist writers, who believe that the bizarre iconography and portrayal of Kali has come about because of patriarchal attitudes towards strong feminine divinities.
Both inferences hit far from the mark. In India, among her worshippers, the dread factor around her appearance is minimal. The feminine in Kali is terrifying but that does not make her a demoness or a witch. In fact, if there is any criticism of her appearance, it is that she has been unnecessarily tamed by the male gaze. Also, her worshippers often exaggerate the ghoulish aspects of her appearance, but tone down the fearfulness around them—in the Mahabhagwata Purana, for instance, she is not the emaciated, death-personifying Kali of the Devi Mahatmya. She still wears a garland of skulls and a skirt of arms, but she is described as an ethereal beauty.
The truth seems to be that Kali is not embarrassed about her dark side, because she has no pride over her body, as the ancient stories about her reiterate. Such a depiction of a goddess, as a free-spirited and vocal entity, not burdened by the rules of appearance and chastity, is both unusual and intriguing.
In the ancient world, the feminine—be it goddesses, brave hearts or ordinary women—is typically understood in relationship with a masculine force. Female voices are also revealed through their relationship with males; as consorts, victims or martyrs. The stories about Kali are free of such trappings, but interestingly, they reveal a different pattern, one of sisterhood between strong, powerful women/goddesses.
Right at the beginning of her existence, Kali forges a bond with Durga, by helping her rid the world of demons. She plays a similar role in her association with Parvati. In the Linga Purana, Parvati is tasked with the killing of Daruka, a demon who can only die at the hands of a woman. To do that Parvati has to transform herself into Kali and seek help from pisacas, flesh-eating demonic beings.
In another story from the Adbhuta Ramayana, Kali comes to Sita’s aid. Sita takes on the Kali-rupa (form) to destroy a 1000-headed Ravana, who is even mightier than the 10-headed king who has been killed by Rama. The monstrous elder Ravana seeks revenge and not even Rama can fight his might. Sita calls on Kali and then, assuming her terrifying form, slays the demon.
Kali’s unconditional support wins battles, restores order and it does not involve petty one-upmanship. In other words, it is very different from the battles that male gods and heroes wage to establish their dominion over the world. It is in this aspect, in her ability to understand the shared bonds of sisterhood that Kali perhaps holds the maximum appeal for feminine power in the modern world.
This article first appeared in Outlook Traveller
