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| What I have learned about Kali: |
Kali is the most fully realized of all the Dark Goddesses. It has been claimed
that Her name is derived from the Hindu word for Time, yet also means "black."
She sometimes is called Durga, though that is properly the name of the Goddess
who spawned Her from Her own brow during battle with demons.
Her very appearance is meant to terrify. She is black and emaciated, with fangs
and claws. She wears a girdle of severed arms, a necklace of skulls or severed
heads, earrings of children's corpses, cobras as bracelets or garlands. Her
mouth is blood-smeared. She is accompanied by she-demons.
Often She is shown standing or dancing on Her husband, the god Shiva; here,
She squats feasting on his intestines while offering one breast.
Yet Kali is not always dark. She also is a loving mother, and especially in
that aspect is worshipped by millions of Hindus.
Source: The Dark Goddesses
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Kali Origin of name: Hindu (Puranic) [India]. Goddess of destruction. Period
of worship: ca. 400 AD, but known from much earlier times. Synonyms: many epithets, also
linked with Durga. Center of worship: chiefly in Bengal.
Kali is the most terrible and malignant aspect of the goddess Sakti (see also Durga)
though the name Kali is an epithet applied to several goddesses. She is the central
figure of the sakta cult in Bengal. Her consort is generally perceived as Siva,
whom she aids and abets in his more malignant aspects. Also one of the mahavidya
personifcations of the Sakti of Siva. In her earliest form she may have been the
personification of the spirit of evil.
She is depicted variously with long
ragged locks, fang-like teeth, or ever tusks, lips smeared or dripping with blood and
claw-like hands with long nails. Her tongue often protrudes. She has no special
vehicle but may be seen dancing on a prostrate Siva. She possesses 10 (sometimes as
many as 18) arms and may wear a necklace of skulls, a belt of severed arms, earrings
of children's corpses, and snakes as bracelets. Often she is half-naked with black
skin. Kali is depicted wading through gore on the battlefield and drinking the blood
of her victims. Frequently she holds a severed head in one of her hands and a large
sword in another. At cremation sites she sits upon the body of the deceased surrounded
by attendant jackals.
There are also more benign aspects of Kali. She slaughters
demons and sometimes her hands are raised in blessing. The conflict of her personality
follows the widely held notion that out of destruction comes rebirth.
Kali is
worshipped in Bengal during the Dipavali festival. In Southern India she is
worshipped as a distinct plague goddess associated with cholera.
Source: Encyclopedia of Gods 12-13-97
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