Kali and patriarchal fears

Exotic India Art, 2020

It is well established in the canons of Indian thought that every woman mirrors in herself the divine feminine. The above piece of poetry goes further and specifically informs us that every female has in herself the Goddess Kali. At first appearances, this comes as a surprising shock, not in the least because of Kali's horrific demeanor. Envisioned as totally naked, the visual tales of her terrible form do not end with her dense black color or with the skirt made up of decapitated hands she adorns in her middle, making a mockery of all conventional images of reassurance a goddess is associated with.

Hypatia, 2000

Journal of Asian Research, 2017

This paper attempts to analyse the paradox inherent in the myth of Kali, both in her iconic delineation and the rituals associated with her worship as depicted in the twelfth century Kalika Purana. The black goddess Kali breaks conventional stereotypes of feminine beauty and sexuality in Hindu goddess mythology. She is the dominant sexual partner straddling the prone Siva and the wild warrior goddess drinking demon blood. She is originally depicted as a symbol of uncontrolled fury emerging from the fair, beautiful goddess Ambika in the battle with the demons in older goddess texts. Thereafter she gains independent existence both as the dark, mysterious and sexually demanding version of the more benign and auspicious Parvati and the Primordial Goddess Power pre-dating the Hindu trinity of male gods, the Universal Mother Force which embraces both good and evil, gods and demons in the Kalika Purana. Unlike other goddess texts which emphasize Kali's role in the battle against the de...

Esoteric Quarterly, 2019

Kālī - the most powerful and most misunderstood of Indian goddesses, she is an Image of Divinity whose roots extend well into the ancient Goddess worship of prehistory to reemerge in the Purāṇas and the Tantras. Under her name of Kālī, the Black Goddess rapidly ascended to the status of Alpha and Omega, the Ultimate Source itself in the Śākta stream of Indian religion. This article traces some of the history of her evolution, examines the legacy of the Tantras and of Śaktism, and touches on her current renaissance among certain segments worldwide. It suggests that Kālī could be morphing into an image of the Divine more in tune with our current search for the feminine face of God in our religious traditions, as well as embodying a cosmic image of divinity more in accord with the demands of ecospirituality, with its acknowledgement of a spiritual connection between human beings and the environment , and the most recent discoveries of the new physics. In the final reckoning, Kālī is seen to be an image of the Divine which cannot be disregarded or dismissed lightly.

The worship of the martial goddesses especially that of Durga and Kali, has been central to the belief system of Shaktism which is based on the celebration of the cosmic, feminine energy or 'Shakti.' Scholars of religion and cultural critics tend to interpret Kali within a binary spectrum of a radical/submissive, proto-femininst/patriarchal goddess. However, the plural, ambivalent and paradoxical nature of Kali's femininity challenge simplistic reading as her trajectory can be mapped across scriptural, visual, mythological, devotional and literary narratives. This paper purports to examine the portrayal of goddess Kali in the Hindu scriptural tradition with special reference to the Devi Mahatmya and the Kalika Purana, the two crucial scriptures that mark the textualization of Kali in the corpus of Hindu religious narratives. There is a remarkable shift in the textual representation of Kali in the concerned scriptures where the portrayal of Kali as an independent, demon d...

2012

In Fred Botting's apt characterization: " Gothic signifies a writing of excess " (1). The representations of the goddess Kālī in Hindu and Western texts constitute as many writings of excess. There is simply too much of her and about her: too many arms, too many skulls dangling around her neck, too much blood smeared on her black face, too long, dishevelled hair, too much impunity in her stuck-out tongue when stepping over the body of Shiva, her celestial husband, too much nudity, all in all too much communicated violence, sexual licentiousness, aggression and appeal to the senses for the mind to comprehend and the spirit to transcend. Kālī is exuberant and excessive in appearance and actions; she constantly pushes the limits of endurance. The uncrowned queen of what may be called Tantric Gothic,1 Kālī repels, attracts and escapes erasure in spite of the many civilizing attempts made to tame her, contain her and portray her as a minor deity who, sneaking from the margins of respectable religious practices and beliefs steals the show of worship through her problematic devotees that would certainly serve more reputable gods if it weren't for her commanding presence. Kālī's Western symbolism replicates the subcontinental one. Thus, although famous/ infamous in the West for her deadly attributes which more often than not prevail over her benevolent characteristics, the overall negative context which marks Kālī's fictional representations is not the mere product of the British colonizers' attempts to demonize the Subcontinent's beliefs and practices so as to justify their civilizing enterprise. Conversely, the benign Kālī – mother, healer, and source of Shakti (power, energy) – is the avatar on which 1 As Urban states: " For European colonizers, Orientalist scholars, and Christian missionaries of the Victorian era, Tantra was generally seen as the worst, most degenerate and depraved example of all the worst tendencies in the " Indian mind, " a pathological mixture of religion and sensuality that led to the decline of modern Hinduism " (1). Kālī's depictions are associated with typical Tantric imagery: unleashed sex, blood, orgies, human sacrifices, etc.

2013

This thesis explores the cult and mythos of the goddess Kali both in her Eastern and Western contexts, comparing and contrasting them in order to gain a better understanding of the Western appropriations of Kali within feminist goddess spirituality. Utilizing a variety of methods, including ethnographic research conducted at Kali temples in California, this research is aimed at providing an entry into the lived contemporary tradition of the Western Kali within goddess spirituality circles, focusing on embodied experience, devotion, ritual, and syncretic practices. Kali, a fierce Indian goddess, is often seen in the Hindu context as a central manifestation of the all encompassing Mother Goddess (Mahadevi, Devi, Shakti, etc), and therefore is a particularly engaging example of contemporary Western appropriation of religious and cultural symbols and narratives. This thesis contributes to understanding Kali in her new North American domain, as well as serving as a case study of the shif...

2018

The literary representation of Goddess Kali in Bankim Chandra Chatterji's <em>Kapalakundala</em> (1866) presents a paradoxical image of a blood thirsty yet maternal goddess, which is foregrounded along with the trope of human sacrifice. While this theme of sacrifice highlights the larger gender politics of the novel, it also allows us to study the tension between the contending constituencies of Kali worshippers. The plot of Chatterji's novel revolves around the tragic fate of Kapalakundalaat the hands of her adoptive "kapalika" father who sets out to punish his daughter's betrayal for she obstructs the ritual of human sacrifice. She rescues the captured Nabakumar and eventually escapes with him from the island after a brief marriage ritual. The kapalika's revenge is finally realized when due to a chain of events Nabakumar suspects his wife of committing adultery and proceeds to kill her under his father-in-law's instructions. Even though Na...