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To: DarkGoddessINU@egroups.com
From: nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nagasiva)
Subject: Kali's Diversity (was Mother Goddess as Kali...)
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 01:13:32 -0700 (PDT)

5000 Kali Yuga 08 26 Vom om om om om

sanjulag@yahoo.com:
> Subject: Mother Goddess as Kali - The Feminine Force in Art
> Hi, I put together the following piece, hope member friends enjoy it.

I did, kin! :> you have inspired me greatly, so I am sending
some stray comments your way. thank you!

> =========================================================
> Mother Goddess as Kali - The Feminine Force in Art
> =========================================================

[to be found at the lovely site at this URL:
	http://www.exoticindiaart.com/kali.txt ]



> 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'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....

this variety of meaning may not apply to the individual devotee,
however. it may be imperative to the tender of heart to consider
that there is only one (pleasant, supportive, compassionate,
defensive, immanent) interpretation of the wrathful imagery 
surrounding the goddess Kali. from another extreme, it may be
essential that Kali appears to the devotee or Tantric in what would 
conventionally be considered a wrathful and extremely terrible way,
and no other.

in my case, for example, it has become more and more important to
me to consistently regard Her most gruesome appearances and their 
significance, knowing Her greatest wrath. while I recognize that
She brings to us what we most truly need, at any one time I do
not find the suggestion of 'equivocal significance' holds
true to my direct experience. :>

I am inspired to bring forward evidence of Her origins as an
indigenous goddess primarily viewed as terrible, and cast into
a role associated predominantly with aggression against enemies
(a kind of fervent defense of Her ruthless and horrible beauty 
offered as a testimony to how much I truly love Her! :>):

	Kali [appears] to represent a presence that dramatically
	and unambiguously confronts one with "the hair-raising,
	horrifying aspects" of reality. She represents, it seems,
	something that has been pushed to its ultimate limits,
	something that has been apprehended as unspeakably
	terrifying, something totally and irreconciliably "other."
	She seems "extreme."

	Kali's associations with blood sacrifice (sometimes
	human), her position as patron goddess of the imfamous
	Thugs, and her importance in Vamacara Tantric ritual
	have generally won for her a reputation as a creature
	born of a crazed, aboriginal mind. She seems, in the
	words of an awestruck writer at the beginning of this
	century, "to have somehow blundered into the daylight
	of the twentieth century, ... unmodified by time and 
	unsoftened by culture." Even when compared with Siva's
	*ghora* (terrible) forms, Kali stands out as a creature
	who is wild, frantic, out of control. And if it were not
	for her extraordinary popularity in the Hindu tradition,
	we might be able to say, as impartial students of
	religious man, that she is an "extreme case," an
	aberration, a dark, frightening creature conjured up
	by a few who existed on the fringes of Indian society
	-- that she is interesting and remarkable, but
	irrelevant to the mainstream of Indian religious
	thought.

	...it is clear that most early references to Kali 
	associate her with tribal groups living on the 
	periphery of Indian society. It is also clear that
	Kali is still regarded with suspicion by many in the
	Hindu tradition; her popularity in Bengal, never
	known for its orthodoxy, further suggests her
	essentially indigenous character. 
	------------------------------------------------------
	"The Sword and the Flute: Kali & Krsna, Dark Visions
	 of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology",
	 David R. Kinsley, Univ. of CA Press, 1975; pp. 82-5. 
	_______________________________________________________

it should be clear that I am *not* biased against Kali. I worship
Her! I love Her! She is my Beloved, my One and Only! My Little
One True Love! I bow before Her every day, live with and learn 
from Her constantly, serve Her as I am able, and am thankful for 
Her compassion.

	The earliest references to Kali in the Hindu tradition
	date to the early medieval period (around A.D. 600) and
	usually locate Kali either on the battlefield or in
	situations on the periphery of Hindu society. In the
	*Agni-* and *Garuda-puranas* she is mentioned in
	invocations that aim at success in war and against 
	one's enemies. She is described as having an awful
	appearance: she is gaunt, has fangs, laughs loudly,
	dances madly, wears a garland of corpses, sits on the
	back of a ghost, and lives in the cremation ground.
	She is asked to crush, trample, break, and burn the
	enemy. In the *Bhagavata-purana* Kali is the patron
	deity of a band of thieves whose leader seeks to
	achieve Kali's blessing in order to have a son. The
	thief kidnaps a saintly Brahman youth with the
	intention of offering him as a blood sacrifice to 
	Kali. The effulgence of the virtuous youth, however,
	burns Kali herself when he is brought near her image.
	Emerging from her image, infuriated, she kills the
	leader, and his entire band. She is described as
	having a dreadful face and large teeth and as laughing
	loudly. She and her host of demons then decapitate
	the corpses of the thieves, drink their blood until
	drunk, and throw their heads about in sport....

	...In Bhavabhuti's *Malatimadhava*, a drama of the
	early eighth century, a female devotee of Camunda, 
	a goddess who is very often identified with Kali,
	captures the heroine, Malati, with the intention of
	sacrificing her to the goddess. Camunda's temple is
	near a cremation ground. A hymn to the goddess
	describes her as dancing wildly and making the world
	shake. She has a gaping mouth, wears a garland of
	skulls, is covered with snakes, showers flames from
	her eyes that destroy the world, and is surrounded
	by goblins.

	Somadeva's *Yasatilaka* (eleventh to twelfth century)
	contains a long description of a godess [sic] called
	Candamari. In all respects she is like Kali, and we
	may understand the scenario Somadeva describes as
	suggestive of Kali's appearance and worship at that
	time. The goddess adorns herself with pieces of human
	corpses, uses oozings from corpses for cosmetics,
	bathes in rivers of wine or blood, sports in cremation
	grounds, and uses human skulls as drinking vessels.
	Bizarre and fanatical devotees gather at her temple
	and undertake forms of ascetic self-torture. They
	burn incense on their heads, drink their own blood,
	and offer their own flesh into the sacrificial fire.

	Kali's association with the periphery of Hindu society
	(she is worshiped by tribal or low-caste people in
	uncivilized or wild places) is also seen in an
	architectural work of the sixth to eighth centuries,
	the *Manasara-silpa-sastra*. There it is said that
	Kali's temples should be built far from villages
	and towns, near the cremation grounds and the dwellings
	of Candalas (very low-caste people)....

	[with Siva]
	...a mutually destructive dance in which the two deities
	incite each other.... ...is a common image in Bengali
	devotional hymns to Kali. Siva and Kali complement each
	other in their madness and destructive habits.

		Crazy is my Father, crazy my Mother,
		And I, their son, am crazy too!
		Shyama {the dark one, a epithet of Kali} is my
			Mother's name.
		My Father strikes His cheeks and makes a hollow sound:
		*Ba-ba-boom! Ba-ba-boom!*
		And my Mother, drunk and reeling,
		Falls across my Father's body!
		Shyama's streaming tresses hang in vast disorder;
		Bees are swarming numberless
		About her crimson Lotus Feet.
		Listen, as She dances, how Her anklets ring!

		[from the "Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna", by "M".]
	...

	In general, then, we may say that Kali is a goddess who
	threatens stability and order. Although she may be said
	to serve order in her role as slayer of demons, more
	often than not she becomes so frenzied on the 
	battlefield, usually becoming drunk on the blood of her
	victims, that she herself begins to destroy the world
	that she is supposed to protect. Thus even in the service
	of the gods, she is ultimately dangerous and tends to get
	out of control. In association with other goddesses, she
	appears to represent their embodied wrath and fury, a
	frightening, dangerous dimension of the divine feminine
	that is released when these goddesses become enraged or
	are summoned to take part in war and killing. In relation
	to Siva, she appears to play the opposite role from that
	of Parvati. ... Kali is Siva's "other" wife, as it were,
	provoking him and encouraging him in his mad, antisocial,
	often disruptive habits. It is never Kali who tames Siva
	but Siva who must becalm Kali. Her association with
	criminals reinforces her dangerous role vis-a-vis society.
	She is at home outside the moral order and seems to be
	unbounded by that order.
	----------------------------------------------------------
	"Hindu Goddesses", David R. Kinsley, Univ. of CA Press,
	 1988; pp. 116-22.
	__________________________________________________________

Kinsley goes on to mention how important Kali is to Hindu
religion and, especially, to "Tantrism, particularly left-
handed Tantrism, and Bengali Sakta devotionalism" (p. 122).

> Kali's human and maternal qualities continue to define the 
> goddess for most of her devotees to this day....

this much seems clear, though I would say that Kali is not a
completely clear character to explain or define. not only is
this maternal quality ambivalent at times, it may take on
completely transcendental (and therefore entirely uncaring)
aspects. in fact, early in human interaction with Kali it is
not at all clear that She had maternal qualities with which
to inspire such devotees.

	Why Kali is approached as mother and in what sense 
	she is perceived to be a mother by her devotees are
	questions that do not have easy or clear answers.
	In almost every sense Kali is *not* portrayed as a
	mother in the Hindu tradition prior to her central
	role in Bengali devotion beginning in the eighteenth 
	century. Except in some contexts when she is 
	associated or identified with Parvati as Siva's
	consort, Kali is rarely pictured in motherly scenes
	in Hindu mythology or iconography. Even in Bengali
	devotion to her, her appearance and habits change
	very little. Indeed, Kali's appearance and habits
	strike one as conveying truths opposed to those
	conveyed by such archetypal mother goddesses as 
	Prthivi, Annapurna, Jagaddhatri, Sataksi, and other
	Hindu goddesses associated with fertility, growth,
	abundance, and well-being. These goddesses appear
	as inexhaustible sources of nourishment and
	creativity. When depicted iconographically they are
	heavy hipped and heavy breasted. Kali, especially
	in her early history, is often depicted or described
	as emaciated, lean, and gaunt. It is not her breasts
	or hips that attract attention. It is her mouth, her
	lolling tongue, and her bloody cleaver. These other
	goddesses, "mother goddesses" in the obvious sense,
	give life. Kali takes life, insatiably. She lives in
	the cremation ground, haunts the battlefield, sits
	upon a corpse, and adorns herself with pieces of
	corpses. If mother goddesses are described as ever
	fecund, Kali is described as ever hungry. Her lolling
	tongue, grotesquely long and over-sized, her sunken
	stomach, emaciated appearance, and sharp fangs convey
	a presence that is the direct opposite of a fertile,
	protective mother goddess. If mother goddesses give life, 
	Kali feeds on life. What they give, she takes away.

	Although the attitude of the devotee to Kali is
	different from that of the Tantric hero, although
	their paths appear very different, the attitude and
	approach of the devotee who insists upon approaching
	Kali as his mother may reveal a logic similar to that
	of the Tantric hero's. The truths about reality that
	Kali conveys -- namely, that life feeds on death,
	that time wears all things down, and so on -- are
	just as apparent to the devotee as they are to the
	Tantric hero's. The fearfulness of these truths,
	however, is mitigated, indeed is transformed into
	liberating wisdom, if these truths can be accepted.
	The Tantric hero seeks to appropriate these truths
	by confronting Kali, by seeking her in the cremation
	ground in the dead of night, and by heroically
	demonstrating courage equal to her terrible presence.
	The devotee, in contrast, appropriates the truths
	Kali reveals by adopting the attitude of a child,
	whose essential nature toward its mother is that of
	acceptance, no matter how awful, how indifferent,
	how fearsome she is. The devotee, then, by making
	the apparently unlikely assertion that Kali is his
	mother, enables himself to approach and appropriate
	the forbidding truths that Kali reveals; in 
	appropriating these truths the devotee, like the
	Tantric adept, is liberated from the fear these
	truths impose on people who deny or ignore them.
	-------------------------------------------------
	 Ibid., pp. 126-7.
	_________________________

I hope here to merely add a dimension or two to what is
thought about the worship of Kali, inasmuch as there are 
evidently differing relations that people have with Her.
my own seems to be rather unusual.

> ...the devotee 
> never forgets Kali's demonic, frightening aspects. He does not 
> distort Kali's nature and the truths she reveals; he does not refuse 
> to meditate on her terrifying features. He mentions these repeatedly 
> in his songs but is never put off or repelled by them. Kali may be 
> frightening, the mad, forgetful mistress of a world spinning out of 
> control, but she is, after all, the Mother of all. As such, she must 
> be accepted by her children- accepted in wonder and awe, perhaps, but 
> accepted nevertheless....

on the other hand, there are many for whom Kali's maternal
qualities appear almost entirely benign. Her fierce appearance
is understood (as are so many demonic characters) as defensive
and protective of the devotee. while this seems to be a later
development of Her character, I would not dismiss it as untrue
even if the devotee never glimpses the deep wisdom of Her horror.

> The soul that worships becomes always a little child: the soul that 
> becomes a child finds God oftenest as mother. In a meditation before 
> the Blessed Sacrament, some pen has written the exquisite 
> assurance: "My child, you need not know much in order to please Me. 
> Only Love Me dearly. Speak to me, as you would talk to your mother, 
> if she had taken you in her arms." 

this appears to be very common. and yet there are those whose
relation to Kali is not so focussed upon being Her child as 
Her lover and husband, even a father and anchor (as Siva is
sometimes portrayed as protecting the world from Her terrible
and destructive dance). Kinsley has something to say about the
commonality of devotees in considering how Siva is said to
calm Kali by appearing on the battlefield, in some stories,
as a corpse, in others as an infant:

	Both the dead and infants have a liminal nature.
	Neither has a complete social identity. Neither
	fits neatly or at all into the niches and
	structures of normal society. To approach Kali
	it is well to assume the identity of a corpse or
	an infant. Having no stake in the orderly
	structures of society, the devotee as corpse or
	infant is free to step out of society into the
	liminal environment of the goddess. The corpse
	is mere food for her insatiable fires, the infant
	mere energy, as yet raw and unrefined. Reduced to
	either extreme, one who approaches Kali in these
	roles is awakened to a perception of reality that
	is difficult to grasp within the confines of the
	order of dharma and a socialized ego.
	-------------------------------------------------
	 Ibid., p. 131.
	_________________

the role he omits (perhaps because it is uncommon or
unheard of within Indian society, I am unaware) is that of
the monk, renunciant, the tyagi. such a one may walk into
Her arms gleefully and with abandon as all thoughts of
social position, material gain (to gain the adoration of
the Queen of Materiality! to embrace the Ground! to kiss
the lips of the Source of Ecstasy! how impossible!! what
crude dominion could equal such a perfect experience?!),
and fear of death (what dies? what is born? who am I?)
have been released to the bosom of the Beloved, smiling.

> 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.... Kali's boon is freedom, the freedom of the 
> child to revel in the moment, 

I must also add that Kali's boon may also be ecstasy! :>

> and it is won only after confrontation or acceptance of death.... 

liberation after acceptance of death, ecstasy with the offering 
of love!

> ...To accept one's mortality is to be able to let go, to be able 
> to sing, dance, and shout. 

and to accept the virtue and perfect the skill of love is to be
able to open one's heart, to care, to nurture, to fuck, beCOME
fucking!

> 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.

I would only add that Kali is Lover and Partner to (some of)
Her devotees not because She is completely benign and controlled,
but because She is wild, authentic, and true, and thus inspires
us to love fully and freely, inspiring us to depths of love which
blot out alternatives, transcending ordinary limitations of space,
time, and contemplation.

I'll let the Tantric heros speak for themselves on the matter. :>

> (Thus ends the newsletter for the month of August)

and a beautiful newsletter it is, my kin.
thank you for sharing this with us.

om Kali!  om Krim!  om hare Krim!  om namah Kali!

lapping up that Wild Western Flavour at Kali's feet,

nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nagasiva)