Goddess Kali
Kali is one of the many forms of Shakti. Maha Kaali is the fiercest of all goddesses of Hinduism. The word Kali has its roots in the Sanskrit word "Kaal", which means time. And nothing escapes from time. Goddess Kali is sometimes referred as the goddess of death. But actually Kali brings the death of the ego. Even in the scriptures, she has killed demons but not anyone else. Kali is also not associated with Yama (the Hindu God of Death). Kali is considered a form of mother too. Maa Kali is one of the few Goddesses who are celibate and practice renunciation.
Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva
Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva, both are regarded to inhabit cremation grounds. Devotees go to these places to meditate with the purpose of overcoming the ego. The cremation grounds emphasize the idea that the body is temporary. Kali and Shiva are known to stay in cremation grounds because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Kali and Shiva give the idea of liberation by dissolving the illusion of the ego. The corporeal frame ultimately vanishes but the soul still remains. This is emphasized by the scene in the cremation grounds.
Maa Kali - The Compassionate Goddess
Maha Kaali is the most compassionate of all the forms of goddesses as she provides salvation or liberation to her children. Kali is equivalent to Shiva because both of them are the destroyers of evil fake and unreal. It is considered that with the glimpse of Maa Kali, ego trembles with terror seeing its own eventual demise in her.
People who are attached to their ego would not be able to receive the idea of Kali and she will appear in a wrathful form to them. But people, who are engaged in spirituality, removing the illusion of the ego, will find Maha Kaali in a different form. Maa Kali will appear as sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with perplexing love for them.
Maa Kali - The Image
Goddess Kali has four arms and hands depicting her immense strength. In two of her hands, she holds a sword and a fresh severed head, representing a great battle in which she defeated the demon Raktabija. The other two hands are there to bless her true devotees, suggesting that they will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.
Kali wears a garland made of 52 skulls and a skirt made of dismembered arms because the ego comes out of identification with the body. It suggests that physical body is false and spirit is the only reality. Her black or sometimes dark blue skin represents the womb of the unmanifest from which all of creation is born and into which all of creation will ultimately return. Therefore, the concepts of color, light, dark, good or bad do not apply to her as she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adishakti.
Goddess Kali is seen standing with her one feet on Lord Shiva who is pure formless awareness Sat-Chit-Ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while Kali represents "form" eternally sustained by the underpinning of pure awareness.
The love between the Divine Mother and her human children is a unique relationship. Kali, the Dark Mother is one such deity with whom devotees have a very loving and intimate bond, in spite of her fearful appearance. In this relationship, the worshipper becomes a child and Kali assumes the form of the ever-caring mother.
"O Mother, even a dullard becomes a poet who meditates upon thee raimented with space, three-eyed, creatrix of the three worlds, whose waist is beautiful with a girdle made of numbers of dead men's arms..." (From a Karpuradistotra hymn, translated from Sanskrit by Sir John Woodroffe)
Who is Kali?
Kali is the fearful and ferocious form of the mother goddess. She assumed the form of a powerful goddess and became popular with the composition of the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the 5th - 6th century AD. Here she is depicted as having born from the brow of Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces. As the legend goes, in the battle, Kali was so much involved in the killing spree that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight. To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage. Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva's chest, with her enormous tongue stuck out.
Legend of Kali
To aid her son in his endeavor to rid the three worlds of the multiplying demon, Raktabija, Parvati entered the cosmic battlefield as the dreaded goddess Kali – dark as death, gaunt with sunken eyes, gaping mouth, with long disheveled hair covering her naked body.
Kali spread her tongue over the battlefield and licked the demon’s falling blood catching on her long, outstretched tongue before the drop could find it’s way to the ground springing a demonic life anew. Raktabija, without his multiplying numbers was left powerless. Skanda was able to dispatch Raktabija and all his remaining duplicates with ease.
Skanda, guardian of the heavens, went on to destroy many demons who opposed the reign of the gods. But he could not defeat the demon Raktabija. Whenever this demon’s blood touched the ground, a thousand new demons sprang to life. He seemed unconquerable.
Skanda thanked his mother for her timely help. To celebrate her victory, Kali danced wildly on the battlefield, bedecking herself with a garland of served heads and a girdle of severed hands.
When the Gods lay exhausted after warring with the demons, the evil-natured demon king Mahishasura took the opportunity to assemble an army and declare himself Lord of Heaven, Ruler of the Universe.
This blasphemy reached Vishnu's ears and, in anger, he shot forth a terrible light from his forehead. Shiva, too, was angry. ascended from his lofty state of meditation and beamed a sharp ray of blinding light in the same direction as Vishnu. Brahma, Indra and the other mighty Gods did likewise, each issuing forth piercing rays of light. All the Gods' rays joined at one point and, slowly, the blazing concentration of light took shape in the form of a woman.
The light of Shiva formed her face; Yama gave her hair and Vishnu her arms. From the light of Chandra, the moon God, her two breasts were formed. Indra modeled her waist and Varuna her thighs. Earth gave her hips and Brahma gave her feet. The light from the fire God, Agni, fashioned her three eyes. Thus, all gods contributed their power to manifest the auspicious Devi, the great Mother Goddess ("Devi" is derived from the Sanskrit root word "div" which means "to shine" - the Shining One).
As soon as the Devi was fully formed, the Immortals prayed to her and worshiped her with praise, ornaments and weapons. Shiva gave her a trident drawn forth from his own, Vishnu a powerful discus, and Indra, the king of the Gods, gave her a thunderbolt identical to his own. Surya, the sun God, bestowed his rays on all the pores of her skin, and Varuna, God of the ocean, gave her a divine crest jewel, earrings, bracelets and a garland of unfading lotuses.
"Victory to the Mother," shouted the Gods as they watched the demon battalions approach with the beating of drums, battle cries, and the blowing of conches. Since the
Devi was of enormous size and highly visible, the demons marched straight toward her, attacking from all sides with arrows, clubs, swords, and spears.
Unperturbed, the Devi roared loudly and laughed a frightening, defiant laugh. Again and again. And then her ten arms rotated, alternately smashing weapons of the demons and hurling them back at her attackers. With great ease, she picked up dozens of demons at once, killing them with her sword. Some demons she didn't even bother to pick up. She stupefied them with the tremendous noise of her bell and then crushed them with her mace.
The demon Raktabija gave the fierce Mother Goddess a fair amount of troubles. He possessed a special magical power which allowed him to create new demons from his own blood. Whenever the Goddess wounded him, each drop of blood that spilled to the ground sprouted another demon full of strength and brutality. But in the end the Mother outwitted him. She picked up Raktabija and lifted him high into the air to avoid spilling his blood on the ground, and then, gnashing him between her teeth, she drank his blood and swallowed him whole.
Other demons, too, tried to confuse the Goddess with their magical powers. Whenever they were threatened by the Devi, they changed their form and color. But, who can escape the great Mother? Bound by her noose and spitting blood, these demons were soon caught by the Devi. And like a child pulling a toy train, she dragged them over the battlefield where scores of demons already lay split into two by the sharp slashes of her sword.
Snatching some elephants with one hand, the Devi flung them into her mouth and, together with the demon drivers, she furiously ground them up with her teeth. She seized one demon by the hair and another by the neck. One she crushed by the weight of her foot and another she crushed with her body.
The Mother's terrible presence filled even the sky. Black clouds gathered and terrifying lightning lit up the ghastly shapes on the ground. There were demons without arms, without legs, and demons torn asunder in the middle of their trunks.
When Mahishasura, the king of the demons, saw his army devastated by the blows of the terrible Mother Goddess, his fury knew no bounds. He expanded his body to take on the fierce shape of a giant buffalo. Intoxicated with his own strength and valor, he roared and charged toward the Devi.
The earth began to tremble under the stomping feet of the Goddess. Mahishasura fought with all his might but could not conquer the Devi. So he appealed to her sense of justice, complaining that she fought in an unfair way. The Devi, he claimed, received help from so many fierce Goddesses - Durga, Kali, Chamunda, Ambika, and others - and he, Mahishasura, had to fight all by himself.
"I am all alone in the world here," thundered the Devi. "Who else is there besides me? See, O vile one, these Goddesses are but my different powers which again enter into my own self. I stand alone. Don't back off; defend yourself."
The savage fight continued, and the great demon attacked the Mother Goddess with showers of arrows. He hurled discuses, swinging his clubs and mace. To no avail. The Devi killed him with her spear, releasing the soul from its evil-natured body and mind.
Dust clouds carried the stench of singed skin and rotting flesh to the blood-red horizon. The demons had been killed, and their blood flowed, accumulating here and there in small pools around the carcasses of elephants and horses. Only some headless torsos of demons who refused to give up life still fought the Devi. The battle shrieks had died and the only cries now were those of jackals and hyenas. There was nothing left to kill, but the blood-intoxicated Mother in the form of Kali continued the carnage - smashing and slashing dead demons all over again.
The Gods, who had begun to celebrate victory, became filled with fear. Who was going to stop her? There was only one who could: Shiva, the great God. Besmeared with ashes, the third God of the Hindu Trinity went to the battlefield and lay down motionless among the corpses while the rest of the Gods watched from a safe distance.
Shiva Calms Kali
Angry with the Evil in the world, Kali ran amuck across the three worlds, destroying everything and everyone in her sight.
To restrain her, Shiva took the form of a corpse and blocked her path. As the goddess, blinded by bloodlust, tripped on his lifeless body, she was jolted out of her frenzy . She wondered if she had killed her own husband. She placed a foot on Shiva’s chest and brought him back to life.
Shiva then took the form of a little child and began to cry, stirring maternal love in the heart of Kali. This forced her to shed her fierce form; Kali became Gauri, the radiant mother, bestower of life.
For those who have grappled with their own ego, the personification of the demons in this story is striking. When the demons first glimpsed the Mother they charged. The darkness sees the light and does not comprehend it. The ego attacks that which it does not understand or that which threatens it.
The demon with the magical power of sprouting a new demon each time a drop of its blood reaches the ground is reminiscent of spiritual pride. This is the power of the ego to inflate itself over "perceived" success in making spiritual progress. Thus spiritual progress is next to impossible as long as spiritual pride keeps sprouting a new demon each time the ego is slashed by some spiritual insight or experience. The ego whispers in our ear, "See what a great spiritual aspirant you are."
Other demons changed form when threatened by the Devi. The ego shifts its position with astounding cunning by the power of rationalization. Mahishasura, the demon king, was intoxicated with his strength and valor and changed into a buffalo. The ego is always consumed with self-importance. When he saw that he was not winning, he tried to fool the Mother with self-pity and claimed that Her many forms were an unfair advantage. The Mother saw through the ploy and destroyed his self-pity with the Truth stating that there was only one Mother. The ego was destroyed and the soul found liberation in Her quick and deadly spear of compassion.
The Fearful Symmetry
Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world's deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, "fear not"! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongue protrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
Awesome Symbols!
Kali's fierce form is strewed with awesome symbols. Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her". Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky. Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness." Kali's garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge.
Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — "her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'." Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.
Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness."
Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert.
Kali Aarti
Goddess Kali Aarti completes the worship or prayers made to the Goddess. It is believed that Kali aarti provides a completion to the Kali puja.
Prema Sahita Nita Karuun Aaratii
Mahaakaalii Maiyaa Ki
Ari Dala Daranii Mangala Bharanii
Dukhaharinii Sukhadaiyaa Ki
Tuma Hii Agama Bhava Bharane Waali
Tuma Hii Jagata Laya Karane Waali
Tuma Hee Kashta Lakhi Nija Bhaktana Para
Aakara Turata Sahaiyaa Ki
Tumhin Prabala Ho Hari Kii Shakti
Rudra Bhava Shankara Kii Bhakti
Tumhin Janani Patavaara Banii
Ika Sevaka Sundara Naiyaa Kii
Kali is one of the many forms of Shakti. Maha Kaali is the fiercest of all goddesses of Hinduism. The word Kali has its roots in the Sanskrit word "Kaal", which means time. And nothing escapes from time. Goddess Kali is sometimes referred as the goddess of death. But actually Kali brings the death of the ego. Even in the scriptures, she has killed demons but not anyone else. Kali is also not associated with Yama (the Hindu God of Death). Kali is considered a form of mother too. Maa Kali is one of the few Goddesses who are celibate and practice renunciation.
Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva
Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva, both are regarded to inhabit cremation grounds. Devotees go to these places to meditate with the purpose of overcoming the ego. The cremation grounds emphasize the idea that the body is temporary. Kali and Shiva are known to stay in cremation grounds because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Kali and Shiva give the idea of liberation by dissolving the illusion of the ego. The corporeal frame ultimately vanishes but the soul still remains. This is emphasized by the scene in the cremation grounds.
Maa Kali - The Compassionate Goddess
Maha Kaali is the most compassionate of all the forms of goddesses as she provides salvation or liberation to her children. Kali is equivalent to Shiva because both of them are the destroyers of evil fake and unreal. It is considered that with the glimpse of Maa Kali, ego trembles with terror seeing its own eventual demise in her.
People who are attached to their ego would not be able to receive the idea of Kali and she will appear in a wrathful form to them. But people, who are engaged in spirituality, removing the illusion of the ego, will find Maha Kaali in a different form. Maa Kali will appear as sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with perplexing love for them.
Maa Kali - The Image
Goddess Kali has four arms and hands depicting her immense strength. In two of her hands, she holds a sword and a fresh severed head, representing a great battle in which she defeated the demon Raktabija. The other two hands are there to bless her true devotees, suggesting that they will be saved as she will guide them here and in the hereafter.
Kali wears a garland made of 52 skulls and a skirt made of dismembered arms because the ego comes out of identification with the body. It suggests that physical body is false and spirit is the only reality. Her black or sometimes dark blue skin represents the womb of the unmanifest from which all of creation is born and into which all of creation will ultimately return. Therefore, the concepts of color, light, dark, good or bad do not apply to her as she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adishakti.
Goddess Kali is seen standing with her one feet on Lord Shiva who is pure formless awareness Sat-Chit-Ananda (being-consciousness-bliss) while Kali represents "form" eternally sustained by the underpinning of pure awareness.
The love between the Divine Mother and her human children is a unique relationship. Kali, the Dark Mother is one such deity with whom devotees have a very loving and intimate bond, in spite of her fearful appearance. In this relationship, the worshipper becomes a child and Kali assumes the form of the ever-caring mother.
"O Mother, even a dullard becomes a poet who meditates upon thee raimented with space, three-eyed, creatrix of the three worlds, whose waist is beautiful with a girdle made of numbers of dead men's arms..." (From a Karpuradistotra hymn, translated from Sanskrit by Sir John Woodroffe)
Who is Kali?
Kali is the fearful and ferocious form of the mother goddess. She assumed the form of a powerful goddess and became popular with the composition of the Devi Mahatmya, a text of the 5th - 6th century AD. Here she is depicted as having born from the brow of Goddess Durga during one of her battles with the evil forces. As the legend goes, in the battle, Kali was so much involved in the killing spree that she got carried away and began destroying everything in sight. To stop her, Lord Shiva threw himself under her feet. Shocked at this sight, Kali stuck out her tongue in astonishment, and put an end to her homicidal rampage. Hence the common image of Kali shows her in her mêlée mood, standing with one foot on Shiva's chest, with her enormous tongue stuck out.
Legend of Kali
To aid her son in his endeavor to rid the three worlds of the multiplying demon, Raktabija, Parvati entered the cosmic battlefield as the dreaded goddess Kali – dark as death, gaunt with sunken eyes, gaping mouth, with long disheveled hair covering her naked body.
Kali spread her tongue over the battlefield and licked the demon’s falling blood catching on her long, outstretched tongue before the drop could find it’s way to the ground springing a demonic life anew. Raktabija, without his multiplying numbers was left powerless. Skanda was able to dispatch Raktabija and all his remaining duplicates with ease.
Skanda, guardian of the heavens, went on to destroy many demons who opposed the reign of the gods. But he could not defeat the demon Raktabija. Whenever this demon’s blood touched the ground, a thousand new demons sprang to life. He seemed unconquerable.
Skanda thanked his mother for her timely help. To celebrate her victory, Kali danced wildly on the battlefield, bedecking herself with a garland of served heads and a girdle of severed hands.
When the Gods lay exhausted after warring with the demons, the evil-natured demon king Mahishasura took the opportunity to assemble an army and declare himself Lord of Heaven, Ruler of the Universe.
This blasphemy reached Vishnu's ears and, in anger, he shot forth a terrible light from his forehead. Shiva, too, was angry. ascended from his lofty state of meditation and beamed a sharp ray of blinding light in the same direction as Vishnu. Brahma, Indra and the other mighty Gods did likewise, each issuing forth piercing rays of light. All the Gods' rays joined at one point and, slowly, the blazing concentration of light took shape in the form of a woman.
The light of Shiva formed her face; Yama gave her hair and Vishnu her arms. From the light of Chandra, the moon God, her two breasts were formed. Indra modeled her waist and Varuna her thighs. Earth gave her hips and Brahma gave her feet. The light from the fire God, Agni, fashioned her three eyes. Thus, all gods contributed their power to manifest the auspicious Devi, the great Mother Goddess ("Devi" is derived from the Sanskrit root word "div" which means "to shine" - the Shining One).
As soon as the Devi was fully formed, the Immortals prayed to her and worshiped her with praise, ornaments and weapons. Shiva gave her a trident drawn forth from his own, Vishnu a powerful discus, and Indra, the king of the Gods, gave her a thunderbolt identical to his own. Surya, the sun God, bestowed his rays on all the pores of her skin, and Varuna, God of the ocean, gave her a divine crest jewel, earrings, bracelets and a garland of unfading lotuses.
"Victory to the Mother," shouted the Gods as they watched the demon battalions approach with the beating of drums, battle cries, and the blowing of conches. Since the
Devi was of enormous size and highly visible, the demons marched straight toward her, attacking from all sides with arrows, clubs, swords, and spears.
Unperturbed, the Devi roared loudly and laughed a frightening, defiant laugh. Again and again. And then her ten arms rotated, alternately smashing weapons of the demons and hurling them back at her attackers. With great ease, she picked up dozens of demons at once, killing them with her sword. Some demons she didn't even bother to pick up. She stupefied them with the tremendous noise of her bell and then crushed them with her mace.
The demon Raktabija gave the fierce Mother Goddess a fair amount of troubles. He possessed a special magical power which allowed him to create new demons from his own blood. Whenever the Goddess wounded him, each drop of blood that spilled to the ground sprouted another demon full of strength and brutality. But in the end the Mother outwitted him. She picked up Raktabija and lifted him high into the air to avoid spilling his blood on the ground, and then, gnashing him between her teeth, she drank his blood and swallowed him whole.
Other demons, too, tried to confuse the Goddess with their magical powers. Whenever they were threatened by the Devi, they changed their form and color. But, who can escape the great Mother? Bound by her noose and spitting blood, these demons were soon caught by the Devi. And like a child pulling a toy train, she dragged them over the battlefield where scores of demons already lay split into two by the sharp slashes of her sword.
Snatching some elephants with one hand, the Devi flung them into her mouth and, together with the demon drivers, she furiously ground them up with her teeth. She seized one demon by the hair and another by the neck. One she crushed by the weight of her foot and another she crushed with her body.
The Mother's terrible presence filled even the sky. Black clouds gathered and terrifying lightning lit up the ghastly shapes on the ground. There were demons without arms, without legs, and demons torn asunder in the middle of their trunks.
When Mahishasura, the king of the demons, saw his army devastated by the blows of the terrible Mother Goddess, his fury knew no bounds. He expanded his body to take on the fierce shape of a giant buffalo. Intoxicated with his own strength and valor, he roared and charged toward the Devi.
The earth began to tremble under the stomping feet of the Goddess. Mahishasura fought with all his might but could not conquer the Devi. So he appealed to her sense of justice, complaining that she fought in an unfair way. The Devi, he claimed, received help from so many fierce Goddesses - Durga, Kali, Chamunda, Ambika, and others - and he, Mahishasura, had to fight all by himself.
"I am all alone in the world here," thundered the Devi. "Who else is there besides me? See, O vile one, these Goddesses are but my different powers which again enter into my own self. I stand alone. Don't back off; defend yourself."
The savage fight continued, and the great demon attacked the Mother Goddess with showers of arrows. He hurled discuses, swinging his clubs and mace. To no avail. The Devi killed him with her spear, releasing the soul from its evil-natured body and mind.
Dust clouds carried the stench of singed skin and rotting flesh to the blood-red horizon. The demons had been killed, and their blood flowed, accumulating here and there in small pools around the carcasses of elephants and horses. Only some headless torsos of demons who refused to give up life still fought the Devi. The battle shrieks had died and the only cries now were those of jackals and hyenas. There was nothing left to kill, but the blood-intoxicated Mother in the form of Kali continued the carnage - smashing and slashing dead demons all over again.
The Gods, who had begun to celebrate victory, became filled with fear. Who was going to stop her? There was only one who could: Shiva, the great God. Besmeared with ashes, the third God of the Hindu Trinity went to the battlefield and lay down motionless among the corpses while the rest of the Gods watched from a safe distance.
Shiva Calms Kali
Angry with the Evil in the world, Kali ran amuck across the three worlds, destroying everything and everyone in her sight.
To restrain her, Shiva took the form of a corpse and blocked her path. As the goddess, blinded by bloodlust, tripped on his lifeless body, she was jolted out of her frenzy . She wondered if she had killed her own husband. She placed a foot on Shiva’s chest and brought him back to life.
Shiva then took the form of a little child and began to cry, stirring maternal love in the heart of Kali. This forced her to shed her fierce form; Kali became Gauri, the radiant mother, bestower of life.
For those who have grappled with their own ego, the personification of the demons in this story is striking. When the demons first glimpsed the Mother they charged. The darkness sees the light and does not comprehend it. The ego attacks that which it does not understand or that which threatens it.
The demon with the magical power of sprouting a new demon each time a drop of its blood reaches the ground is reminiscent of spiritual pride. This is the power of the ego to inflate itself over "perceived" success in making spiritual progress. Thus spiritual progress is next to impossible as long as spiritual pride keeps sprouting a new demon each time the ego is slashed by some spiritual insight or experience. The ego whispers in our ear, "See what a great spiritual aspirant you are."
Other demons changed form when threatened by the Devi. The ego shifts its position with astounding cunning by the power of rationalization. Mahishasura, the demon king, was intoxicated with his strength and valor and changed into a buffalo. The ego is always consumed with self-importance. When he saw that he was not winning, he tried to fool the Mother with self-pity and claimed that Her many forms were an unfair advantage. The Mother saw through the ploy and destroyed his self-pity with the Truth stating that there was only one Mother. The ego was destroyed and the soul found liberation in Her quick and deadly spear of compassion.
The Fearful Symmetry
Kali is represented with perhaps the fiercest features amongst all the world's deities. She has four arms, with a sword in one hand and the head of a demon in another. The other two hands bless her worshippers, and say, "fear not"! She has two dead heads for her earrings, a string of skulls as necklace, and a girdle made of human hands as her clothing. Her tongue protrudes from her mouth, her eyes are red, and her face and breasts are sullied with blood. She stands with one foot on the thigh, and another on the chest of her husband, Shiva.
Awesome Symbols!
Kali's fierce form is strewed with awesome symbols. Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Says the Mahanirvana Tantra: "Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her". Her nudity is primeval, fundamental, and transparent like Nature — the earth, sea, and sky. Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond the all maya or "false consciousness." Kali's garland of fifty human heads that stands for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, symbolizes infinite knowledge.
Her girdle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. Her white teeth show her inner purity, and her red lolling tongue indicates her omnivorous nature — "her indiscriminate enjoyment of all the world's 'flavors'." Her sword is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bonds that bind us.
Her three eyes represent past, present, and future, — the three modes of time — an attribute that lies in the very name Kali ('Kala' in Sanskrit means time). The eminent translator of Tantrik texts, Sir John Woodroffe in Garland of Letters, writes, "Kali is so called because She devours Kala (Time) and then resumes Her own dark formlessness."
Kali's proximity to cremation grounds where the five elements or "Pancha Mahabhuta" come together, and all worldly attachments are absolved, again point to the cycle of birth and death. The reclined Shiva lying prostrate under the feet of Kali suggests that without the power of Kali (Shakti), Shiva is inert.
Kali Aarti
Goddess Kali Aarti completes the worship or prayers made to the Goddess. It is believed that Kali aarti provides a completion to the Kali puja.
Prema Sahita Nita Karuun Aaratii
Mahaakaalii Maiyaa Ki
Ari Dala Daranii Mangala Bharanii
Dukhaharinii Sukhadaiyaa Ki
Tuma Hii Agama Bhava Bharane Waali
Tuma Hii Jagata Laya Karane Waali
Tuma Hee Kashta Lakhi Nija Bhaktana Para
Aakara Turata Sahaiyaa Ki
Tumhin Prabala Ho Hari Kii Shakti
Rudra Bhava Shankara Kii Bhakti
Tumhin Janani Patavaara Banii
Ika Sevaka Sundara Naiyaa Kii