Kali (Sanskrit: Kālī काली) is a Hindu goddess with a long and complex history in Hinduism. Although sometimes presented as dark and violent, her earliest incarnation as a figure of annihilation still has some influence, while more complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the Ultimate Reality (Brahman) and Source of Being. She is also known and revered as Bhavatarini (meaning: redeemer of the universe Dakshineswar Kali Temple). Finally, the comparatively recent devotional movement largely conceives of Kali as a straightforwardly benevolent mother-goddess. Therefore, as with her association with the Deva (god) Shiva, Kali is associated with many Devis (goddesses) - Durga, Bhadrakali, Bhavani, Sati, Rudrani, Parvati, Chinnamasta, Chamunda, Kamakshi or kamakhya, Uma, Meenakshi, Himavanti, Kumari and Tara. These names, if repeated, are believed to give special power to the worshipper. She is the foremost Goddess among the Dasa Mahavidyas.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.
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.
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.
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
Slayer of Raktabija "Kali Triumphant on The Battle Feild," Punjab, circa 1800-20CE)In Kali's most famous myth, Durga and her assistants, Matrikas, wound the demon Raktabija, in various ways and with a variety of weapons, in an attempt to destroy him. They soon find that they have worsened the situation, as for every drop of blood that is spilt from Raktabija the demon reproduces a copy of himself. The battlefield becomes increasingly filled with his duplicates. Durga, in dire need of help, summons Kali to combat the demons.
Kali destroys Raktabija by sucking the blood from his body and putting the many Raktabija duplicates in her gaping mouth. Pleased with her victory, Kali then dances on the field of battle, stepping on the corpses of the slain. Her consort Shiva lies among the dead beneath her feet, a representation of Kali commonly seen in iconography, the Daksinakali pose.
In Devi Mahatmya version of this story, Kali is also described as an Matrika and as a Shakti or power of Devi. She is given the epithet Cāmundā (Chamunda) i.e the slayer of demons Chanda and Munda. Chamunda is very often identified with Kali and is very much like her in appearance and habit.
Popular form of Kali
Classic depictions of Kali share several features, as follows:
Kali's most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a sword, a trishul (trident), a severed head and a bowl or skull-cup (kapala) catching the blood of the severed head.
She has a garland consisting of human heads, variously enumerated at 108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a Japa Mala or rosary for repetition of Mantras) or 51, which represents Varnamala or the Garland of letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, Devanagari. Hindus believe Sanskrit is a language of dynamism, and each of these letters represents a form of energy, or a form of Kali. Therefore she is generally seen as the mother of language, and all mantras.
She is often depicted naked which symbolizes her being beyond the covering of Maya since she is pure (nirguna) being-consciousness-bliss and far above prakriti. She is shown as very dark as she is brahman in its supreme unmanifest state. She has no permanent qualities -- she will continue to exist even when the universe ends. It is therefore believed that the concepts of color, light, good, bad do not apply to her -- she is the pure, un-manifested energy, the Adi-shakti.
Mahakali Form
In these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert or dead body of Shiva. There is a mythological story for the reason behind her standing on what appears to be Shiva’s corpse, which translates as follows:
Once Kali had destroyed all the demons in battle, she began a terrific dance out of the sheer joy of victory. All the worlds or lokas began to tremble and sway under the impact of her dance. So, at the request of all the Gods, Shiva himself asked her to desist from this behavior. However, she was too intoxicated to listen. Hence, Shiva lay like a corpse among the slain demons in order to absorb the shock of the dance into himself. When Kali eventually stepped upon her husband she realized her mistake and bit her tongue in shame.
The Shiv tattava (Divine Consciousness as Shiva) is inactive, while the Shakti tattava (Divine Energy as Kali) is active. Shiva, or Mahadeva represents Brahman, the Absolute pure consciousness which is beyond all names, forms and activities. Kali, on the other hand, represents the potential (and manifested) energy responsible for all names, forms and activities. She is his Shakti, or creative power, and is seen as the substance behind the entire content of all consciousness. She can never exist apart from Shiva or act independently of him, i.e., Shakti, all the matter/energy of the universe, is not distinct from Shiva, or Brahman, but is rather the dynamic power of Brahman.
While this is an advanced concept in monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the Nondual Trika philosophy of Kashmir, popularly known as Kashmir Shaivism and associated most famously with Abhinavagupta. There is a colloquial saying that "Shiva without Shakti is Shava" which means that without the power of action (Shakti) that is Mahakali (represented as the short "i" in Devanagari) Shiva (or consciousness itself) is inactive; Shava means corpse in Sanskrit and the play on words is that all Sanskrit consonants are assumed to be followed by a short letter "a" unless otherwise noted. The short letter "i" represents the female power or Shakti that activates Creation. This is often the explanation for why She is standing on Shiva, who is either Her husband and complement in Shaktism or the Supreme Godhead in Shaivism.
To properly understand this complex Tantric symbolism it is important to remember that the meaning behind Shiva and Kali does not stray from the non-dualistic parlance of Shankara or the Upanisads. According to both the Mahanirvana and Kularnava Tantras, there are two distinct ways of perceiving the same absolute reality. The first is a transcendental plane which is often described as static, yet infinite. It is here that there is no matter, there is no universe and only consciousness exists. This form of reality is known as Shiva, the absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda -- existence, knowledge and bliss. The second is an active plane, an immanent plane, the plane of matter, of Maya, i.e., where the illusion of space-time and the appearance of an actual universe does exist. This form of reality is known as Kali or Shakti, and (in its entirety) is still specified as the same Absolute Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is here in this second plane that the universe (as we commonly know it) is experienced and is described by the Tantric seer as the play of Shakti, or God as Mother Kali.
From a Tantric perspective, when one meditates on reality at rest, as absolute pure consciousness (without the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to this as Shiva or Brahman. When one meditates on reality as dynamic and creative, as the Absolute content of pure consciousness (with all the activities of creation, preservation or dissolution) one refers to it as Kali or Shakti. However, in either case the yogini or yogi is interested in one and the same reality -- the only difference being in name and fluctuating aspects of appearance. It is this which is generally accepted as the meaning of Kali standing on the chest of Shiva.
Although there is often controversy surrounding the images of divine copulation, the general consensus is benign and free from any carnal impurities in its substance. In Tantra the human body is a symbol for the microcosm of the universe; therefore sexual process is responsible for the creation of the world. Although theoretically Shiva and Kali (or Shakti) are inseparable, like fire and its power to burn, in the case of creation they are often seen as having separate roles. With Shiva as male and Kali as female it is only by their union that creation may transpire. This reminds us of the prakrti and purusa doctrine of Samkhya wherein prakāśa- vimarśa has no practical value, just as without prakrti, purusa is quite inactive. This (once again) stresses the interdependencies of Shiva and Shakti and the vitality of their union.
Gopi Krishna proposed that Kali standing on the dead Shiva or Shava (Sanskrit for dead body) symbolised the helplessness of a person undergoing the changing process ( psychologically and physiologically) in the body conducted by the Kundalini Shakti.
