Kali Yuga
Kali ("the black one") is the Hindu mother goddess, symbol of
dissolution and destruction. She destroys ignorance, maintains the world order,
and blesses and frees those who strive for the knowledge of God. In the Vedas
the name is associated with Agni, the god of fire,
who had seven flickering tongues of flame, of which Kali was the black,
horrible tongue. This meaning of the word has meanwhile been replaced by the
goddess Kali, the grim consort of Shiva.
Her appearance is fearsome: baleful eyes, a protruding tongue, and four
arms. In her upper left hand she wields a bloody sword and in her lower left
hand she holds the severed head of a demon. With her upper right hand she makes
the gesture of fearlessness, while the lower right hand confers benefits. Draped
around her is a chain of severed human heads and she wears a belt made of
dismembered arms. As the Divine Mother she is often represented dancing or in
sexual union with Shiva. As Bhavatarini, the redeemer
of the universe, she stands upon the supine form of her spouse. She is also
known as Kalikamata ("black earth-mother")
and Kalaratri ("black night"). Among the
Tamils she is known as Kottavei. Kali is worshipped
particularly in
What follows is a description of the age of Kali as found in the Vedic
scriptures. Kali-yuga (the age of quarrel) started
5,000 years ago (3,102 B.C.) and is scheduled to last a total of 432,000 years,
leaving 427,000 years to go. At the end of Kali-yuga
(i.e., in 427,000 years) The yuga-cycle
will
"In the age of Kali, people are spontaneously attracted to sinful
activities and are devoid of the regulations of the scriptures. The so-called
"twice-born" are degraded by their low-class activities and those who
are born in low-class families are alway s hostile to
brahminical culture. The twice-born are low-class by
quality and do business by selling mantras. These so-called learned men are
absorbed in their intestines and genitals and their only identification is the
thread they wear. Indulging in ove reating, absorbed in bodily consciousness, lazy,
intellectually dull and greedy for others properties, they are consistantly against God-consciousness. Due to being overly
inclined towards false paths without essence, they manufacture their own
processes for self-realisation. Neglecting their
actual duties they are expert in blaspheming You (the
Supreme Personality of Godhead) and the saintly persons; hence again Mother
Earth is in tears due to this burden. Therefore, Oh Lord of the Universe,
destroyer of the miseries of the destitute, please mercifully do what is befitting for the protection of the Earth and the
living entities."
"The very day and moment the Personality of Godhead, Lord Sri Krsna, left this earth, the personality of Kali, who
promotes all kinds of irreligious activities, came into this world." (S.B.
1.18.6)
"O learned one, in this iron age of Kali men have but short lives. They
are quarrelsome, lazy, misguided, unlucky and, above all, always
disturbed." (S.B. 1.1.10)
Foreseeing the incompetencies of the people in
this age of Kali or the iron age of quarrel, great sages and saintly people
throughout the ages have sort to benefit the general mass of people by
revealing to them the knowledge contained in the scriptures, whereby they may
attain relief from the inflictions of this most degraded and dangerous of all
ages.
Elaborate description of the anomolies of
Kali-yuga and the plight of the living entities is
given in the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Therein it is described how as the sun rose and after taking his morning
ablutions in the waters of the Sarasvati, Vyasadeva sat alone to concentrate. "The great sage Vyasadeva saw anomilies in the
duties of the millennium. This happens on the earth in different ages, due to
unseen forces in the course of time. The great sage, who was fully equipped in
knowledge, could see, through his transcendental v ision,
the deterioration of everything material, due to the influence of the age. He
could also see that the faithless people in general would be reduced in
duration of life and would be impatient due to lack of goodness. Thus he
contemplated for the welf are of men in all statuses
and orders of life." (S.B. 1.4.16-18)
In the purport to these verses Srila Prabhupada describes Kali-yuga in
this way: "The unmanifested forces of time are
so powerful that they can reduce all matter to oblivion in due course. In Kali-yuga, the last millennium of a round of four millenniums , the power of all material objects deteriorates
by the influence of time. In this age the material body of the people in
general is reduced, and so is the memory. The action of matter has also not so
much incentive. The land does not produce food grains in the same proportions
as it did in other ages. The cow does not give as much milk as it did formerly.
The production of vegetables and fruits is less than before. As such, all
living beings, both men and animals, do not have sumptuous, nourishing food. Due
to want of so many necessities of life, naturally the duration of life is
reduced, the memory is short, intelligence is meager, mutual dealings are full
of hypocricy and so on.
The great sage Vyasadeva could see this by his
transcendental vision. As an astrologer can see the future fate of a man, or an
astronomer can foretell the solar and lunar eclipses, those liberated souls who
can see through the scriptures can foretell the future of mankind. They can see
this due to their sharp vision of spiritual attainment.
And all such transcendentalists, who are naturally devotees of the Lord,
are always eager to render welfare service to the people in general. They are
the real friends of the people in general, not the so-called public leaders who
are unable to see what is going to happen five minutes ahead. In this age the
people in general as well as their so-called leaders are all unlucky fellows,
faithless in spiritual knowledge and influenced by the age of Kali. They are
always disturbed by various diseases. For exa mple, in the present age there are so many TB patientsand TB hospitals, but formerly this was not so
because the time was not so unfavourable." Elsewhere
in the Srimad Bhagavatam Srila Prabhupada further reveals
the degredation of human society.
"In the Kali-yuga the population is just a royal
edition of the animals. They have nothing to do with spiritual knowledge or
godly religious life. They are so blind that they cannot see anything beyond
the jurisdiction of the subtle mind, intelligence or ego, but they are very
much proud of their advancement in knowledge, science and material prosperity. They
can risk their lives to become a dog or hog j ust
after leaving the present body, for they have completely lost sight of the
ultimate aim of life." (S.B.1.3.43)
The people of the world in this age of Kali are always full of
anxieties. Everyone is diseased with some kind of ailment. From the very faces
of the people of this age, one can find out the index of the mind. Everyone
feels the absence of his relative wh
o is away from home. The particular symptom of the age of Kali is that no
family is now blessed to live together. To earn a livelihood, the father lives
at a place far away from the son, or the wife lives far away from the husband
and so on. There are suf ferings
from internal diseases, separation from those near and dear, and anxieties for
maintaining the status quo. These are but some important factors which make the
people of this age always unhappy.
With the progress of the age of Kali, four things particularly, namely
the duration of life, mercy, the power of recollection, and moral or religious
principles will gradually dimminish. Since Dharma, or
the principles of religion, would be lost in the p roportion
of three out of four, the symbolic bull is standing on one leg only. When three
fourths of the whole world become irreligious, the
situation is converted into hell for the animals. In the age of Kali, godless
civilizations will create so many so -called religious societies in which the
Personality of Godhead will be directly or indirectly defied. And thus
faithless societies of men will make the world uninhabitable for the saner
section of people.
Beef is forbidden in the scriptures, and the bull and cows are offerred special protection by the followers of the Vedas. But
in this age of Kali, people will exploit the body of the bull and the cow as
they like, and thus they will invite sufferings of various types.
The people of this age will not perform any sacrifice. The mleccha population will care very little for performances
of sacrifices, although performance of sacrifice is essential for persons who
are materially engaged in sense enjoyment. The mlecchas,
ho wever, make plans to install slaughterhouses for
killing bulls and cows along with other animals, thinking that they will
prosper by increasing the number of factories and live on animal food without
caring for performance of sacrifices and production of grains.
In this age of Kali, the women and the children, along with the brahmanas and cows, will be grossly neglected and left
unprotected. In this age illicit connection with women will render many women
and children uncared for. Circumstantially, the women wil
l try to become independent of the protection of men, and marriage will be
performed as a matter of formal agreement between man and woman. In most cases
the children will not be taken care of properly. The brahmanas
are traditionally intelligent men, and thus they will be able to pick up modern
education to the topmost rank, but as far as moral and religious principles are
concerned, they shall be the most fallen. Education and bad character go ill
together, but such things will run parallel. The adminis
trative heads as a class will condemn the tenets of
Vedic wisdom and will prefer to conduct a so-called secular state, and the
so-called educated brahmanas will be purchased by
such unscrupulous administrators. Even a philosopher and writer of many books
on religious principles may also accept an exalted post in a government which
denies all the moral codes of the sastras. The brahmanas are specifically restricted from accepting such
service. But in this age they will not only accept service, but they wil l do so even if it is of the meanest quality. These are
some of the symptoms of the Kali age which are harmful to the general welfare
of human society.
In this age, people are indulging in the necessities of life, eating,
sleeping, defending and mating, without following the rules and regulations,
and this deterioration of social and moral rules is certainly lamentable
because of the harmful effects of such beastly behavior. In this age, the
fathers and the guardians are not happy with the behavior of their wards. They
should know that so many innocent children are victims of bad association
awarded by the influence of this age of Kali. In this age of Kali the poor
innocent students are daily victims of cinemas which attract men only for sex
indulgence.
Nowadays, men without proper training by culture and tradition are
promoted to exalted posts by the votes of the people who are themselves fallen
in the rules and regulations of life. How can such people select a proper man
when they are themselves falle n in the standard of
life? Therefore, by the influence of the age of Kali, everywhere, politically,
socially or religiously, everything is topsy-turvy, and therefore for the sane
man it is most regrettable. (S.B.1:
In the twelth canto of the Srimad
Bhagavatam Srila Sukadeva Goswami relates how
after the thorough degredation of the brahminical and administrative classes these and other
symptoms of Kali-yuga increase to an intolerable
level.
"Sukadeva Goswami
said: Then, O King, religion, truthfulness, cleanliness, tolerance, mercy, duration of life, physical strength and memory will
all diminish day by day because of the powerful influence of the age of Kali. In
Kali-yuga, wealth alone will be considered a sign of
a man's good birth, proper behavior and fine qualities. And law and justice
will be applied only on the basis of one's power. Men and women will live
together merely because of superficial attraction, and success in business will
depend on deceit. Womanliness and manliness will be judged according to one's
expertise in sex, and a man will be known as a brahmana
just by his wearing a thread. A person's spiritual position will be ascertained
merely according to external symbols, and on the same basis people will change
from one spiritual order to the next. A person's propiety
will be seriously questioned if he does not earn a good living. And one who is
very clever at juggling words will be considered a learned scholar. A person wil l be judged unholy if he does
not have money, and hypocrisy will be accepted as virtue. Marriage will be
arranged simply by verbal agreement, and a person will think he is fit to
appear in public if he has merely taken a bath. A sacred place will be taken to
consist of no more than a reservoir of water located at a distance, and beauty
will be thought to depend on one's hairstyle. Filling the belly will become the
goal of life, and one who is audacious will be accepted as truthful. He who can
maintain a f amily will be
regarded as an expert man, and the principles of religion will be observed only
for the sake of reputation.
As the earth becomes crowded with a corrupt population, whoever among
any of the social classes shows himself to be the strongest will gain political
power. Losing their wives and properties to such avaricious
and merciless rulers, who will behave no bet ter than
ordinary theives, the citizens will flee to the
mountains and forests. Harassed by famine and excessive taxes, people will
resort to eating leaves, roots, flesh, wild honey, fruits, flowers and seeds. Struck
by drought, they will become completel y ruined. The
citizens will suffer greatly from cold, wind, heat, rain and snow. They will be
further tormented by quarrels, hunger, thirst, disease and severe anxiety. The
maximum duration of life for human beings in Kali-yuga
will become fifty years.
By the time the age of Kali ends, the bodies of all creatures will be
greatly reduced in size, and the religious principles of followers of varnasrama will be ruined. The path of the Vedas will be
completely forgotten in human society, and so-called reli
gion will be mostly atheistic. The kings will mostly
be theives, the occupations of men will be stealing,
lying and needless violence, and all the social classes will be reduced to the
lowest level of sudras. Cows will be like goats,
spiritual hermitages will be no different from mundane houses, and family ties
will extend no further than the immediate bonds of marriage. Most plants and
herbs will be tiny, and all trees will appear like dwarf sami trees. Clouds will be full of lightning, homes
will be dev oid of piety, and all human beings will
have become like asses. At that time, the Supreme Personality of Godhead will
appear on the earth. Acting with the power of pure spiritual goodness, He will
rescue eternal religion." (S.B.12.2.1-16)
"In the age of Kali only one fourth of the religious principles
remains. That last remnant will continuously be decreased by the
ever-increasing principles of irreligion and will finally be destroyed. In the age of Kali people tend to be
greedy, ill-behaved and merciless, and they fight one another without good
reason. Unfortunate and obsessed with material desires, the people of Kali-yuga are almost all sudras and
barbarians. When there is a predomin ance of cheating, lying, sloth, sleepiness, violence,
depression, lamentation, bewilderment, fear and poverty, that age is Kali, the
age of the mode of ignorance. Because of the bad qualities of the age of Kali,
human beings will become shortsighted, unfo rtunate, gluttonous, lustful and poverty-stricken. The
women, becoming unchaste, will freely wander from one man to the next. Cities
will be dominated by theives, the Vedas will be
contaminated by speculative interpretations of atheists, political leaders will
virtually consume the citizens, and the so-called priests and intellectualls will be devotees of their bellies and
genitals. The brahmacaris will fail to execute their
vows and become generally unclean, the householders will become beggars, the varn aprasthas will live in the
villages, and the sannyasis will become greedy for
wealth.
Women become much smaller in size, and they will eat too much, have more
children than they can properly take care of, and lose all shyness. They will
speak harshly and will exhibit qualities of theivery,
deceit and unrestrained audacity.
Businessmen will engage in petty commerce and earn their money by
cheating. Even when there is no emergency, people will consider any degraded
occupation quite acceptable. Servants will abandon a master who has lost his
wealth, even if that master is a s aintly
person of exemplary character. Masters will abandon an incapacitated servant,
even if that servant has been in the family for generations. Cows will be
abandoned or killed when they stop giving milk.
In Kali-yuga men will be wretched and
controlled by women. They will reject their fathers, brothers, other relatives
and friends and will instead associate with the sisters and brothers of their
wives. Thus their conception of friendship will be based ex clusively
on sexual ties. Uncultured men will accept charity on behalf of the Lord and
will earn their livelihood by making a show of austerity and wearing a mendicant_s dress. Those who know nothing about religion
will mount a high seat and presume to speak on religious principles.
In the age of Kali, people's minds will always be agitated. They will
become emanciated by famine and taxation, my dear
King, and will always be disturbed by fear of drought. They will lack adequate
clothing, food and drink, will be unable to properly re st,
have sex or bathe themselves, and will have no ornaments to decorate their
bodies. In fact, the people of Kali-yuga will
gradually come to appear like ghostly, haunted creatures.
In Kali-yuga men will develop hatred for each other
even over a few coins. Giving up friendly relations, they will be ready to lose
their own lives and kill even their own relatives. Men will no longer protect
their elderly parents, their children or the ir
respectable wives. Thoroughly degraded, they will care only to satisfy their
own bellies andgenitals.
O King, in the age of Kali people's intelligence will be diverted by
atheism, and they will almost never offer sacrifice to the Supreme Personality
of Godhead, who is the supreme spiritual master of the universe. Although the
great personalities who cont rol the three worlds all
bow down to the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord, the petty and miserable human
beings of this age will not do so.
Terrified, about to die, a man collapses on his bed. Although his voice
is faltering and he is hardly conscious of what he is saying, if he utters the
holy name of the Supreme Lord he can be freed from the reaction of his fruitive work and achieve the su preme destination. But still people in the age of Kali will
not worship the Supreme Lord." (S.B.12.3.24-44).
All kings occupying the earth in the Kali Age will be wanting in tranquillity, strong in anger, taking pleasure at all times
in lying and dishonesty, inflicting death on women, children, and cows, prone
to take the paltry possessions of others, with character that is mostly tamas, rising to power and soon falling. They will be
short-lived, ambitious, of little virtue, and greedy. People will follow the
customs of others and be adulterated with them; peculiar, undisciplined
barbarians will be vigorously supported by rulers. Because they go on living
with perversion, they will be ruined.
And Dharma becomes very weak in the Kali age, and people commit sin in
mind, speech, and actions...Quarrels, plague, fatal diseases, famines, drought,
and calamities appear. Testimonies and proofs have no certainty. There is no
criterion left when the Kali age settles down. People become poorer in vigor
and lustre. They are wicked, full of anger, sinful,
false, and avaricious. Bad ambitions, bad education, bad dealings, and bad
earnings excite fear. The whole batch becomes greedy and untruthful. Many sudras will become kings, and many heretics will be seen.
"There will arise various sects; sannyasins
wearing clothes colored red. Many profess to have supreme knowledge because,
thereby, they will easily earn their livelihood. In the Kali age, there will be
many false religionists.
"Earth will be valued only for her mineral treasures. Money alone
will confer nobility. Power will be the sole definition of virtue. Pleasure
will be the only reason for marriage. Lust will be the only reason for
womanhood. Falsehood will win out in disputes. Being dry of water will be the
only definition of land. Praise worthiness will be measured by accumulated
wealth. Impropriety will be considered good conduct, and only feebleness will
be the reason for unemployment. Boldness and arrogance will be equivalent to
scholarship. Only those without wealth will show honesty. Just a bath will
amount to purification, and charity will be the only virtue. Abduction will be
marriage. Simply to be well dressed will signify propriety. And any
hard-to-reach water will be deemed a pilgrimage site. The pretense of greatness
will be the proof of it, and powerful men with many severe faults will rule
over all the classes on earth. Oppressed by their excessively greedy rulers,
people will hide in valleys between mountains, here
they will gather honey, vegetables, roots, fruits, birds, flowers and so forth.
Suffering from cold, wind, heat and rain, they will put on clothes made of tree
bark and leaves. And no one will live as long as twenty-three years. Thus in
the Kali Age humankind will be utterly destroyed."
The Kalki avatar
Avatar is a word that is commonly heard but rarely understood. In
English, the word has come to mean "an embodiment, a bodily manifestation
of the Divine." However, the Sanskrit word Avatara
means "the descent of God" or simply "incarnation." Here is
the definition based on
The Avatara, or incarnation of Godhead, descends from
the
An Avatara is a personal form of the Supreme Being
and innumerable such divine forms reside in an eternal spiritual realm. When a
personal form of God descends from that higher dimensional realm to the
material world, He (or She) is known as an
incarnation, or Avatara.
By referring to the form of God as an "incarnation," one invokes a
Western conception describing a physical symbol which represents or embodies an
abstraction. In fact, the Latin root carnis means
"flesh." However, in this context, this may be somewhat misleading,
since the divine forms of God do not "become flesh" or "take on
a material body." An ordinary soul may take on a gross material body, but
in the case of God, His 'soul' and His 'body' refer to the same spiritual
essence.
In fact, the Avataras exhibit God's essential
features: They are eternally existent and free from the laws of the matter,
time and space. Although They have no obligation to
come into contact with the material energy, the Avataras
descend into this world for our own protection, instruction and redemption. Although
They may potray human
weaknesses such as grief and anger, They are never to be considered ordinary
people. Human beings act out of earthly desire, fear and anger. The Avatar,
however, acts out of His own blissfully divine nature performing exhuberant pastimes for the pleasure of His pure devotees.
God is one, yet He manifests Himself in innumerable forms within this world. There
is the Darling Krishna Avatar whose beauty enchants the hearts of all; and the
awesome Narasimha (the Man- Lion Avatar) who
outwitted an ingenious demonic tyrant; and the regal form of Lord Rama Avatar whose example of truth and virtue is emulated
even today. Each and every one of those forms has a particular mission; each
Avatar being a unique revelation of the Absolute Truth.
Although the Avatars appear in different forms at different times, places and
circumstances, They are the Selfsame Supreme Lord and
Their purpose is one: to reveal the Absolute Truth in this world and remind its
inhabitants of their eternal lives of blissful service to God in their original
homeland, the spiritual world. This divine purpose is eloquently expressed by
Lord Krsna in the world-famous Bhagavad-gita
(4.7-8):
Whenever there is a decline in religious practice and a predominant rise of
irreligion--at that time I descend Myself. To deliver
the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to establish the
principles of religion, I Myself appear, millennium
after millennium.
The ultimate mission of incarnations is to arouse love of God everywhere.
In fact, a very systematic analysis of the Avatars based on thse
Vedic texts was expounded in the early sixteenth century by the devotional
saint Shri Chaitanya,
Himself an Avatara. In 1528, He went to
The tenth and the last avatar of Vishnu, Kalki,
is yet to appear. Kalki will
appear at the end of the Kali-Yuga riding his white horse with a drawn flaming
sword blazing like a comet. He shall come finally to destroy the wicked, to
exterminate the evil. His task will be to restart the new creation and to
restore the purity of conduct in people's lives, to restore the Dharma. Thus
will begin a new cycle, again will start the Satya
Yuga. He will be "the one who comes back". "When
justice is crushed, when evil rules supreme, then I come. For the
protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the sake of
firmly establishing righteousness, I am born in age after age." (Bhagavad-Gita
4.7-8)
THE CULT OF KALI
By Karl N Eng
This excerpt is taken from the
booklet Cult of Kali, which in its whole is taking up many more aspects of the
dark hindu goddess, and the
cult surrounding her.
Kali
means ‘The black one’ or ‘the black’. In Vedic days this name was associated
with Agni (meaning fire) a personification of the
sacrificial fire, who had seven flickering tongues of flame devouring oblations
of butter (ghee). The seven tongues or flames of Agni, alluded to as the
‘Seven Red Sisters’. Of these seven Kali was the black or terrific tongue. This
meaning of the word is now lost, but has developed into the goddess Kali, the
fierce, jet black and bloody consort of Siva (Shiva). The concept of the great
goddess is called Sakti (Shakti), the word itself means ‘power’, a personification of the
female principle and lifeforce in universe. As her
male counterpart she is a both destructive and creative and appears in many
aspects and shapes, under various names. Two ancient Hindu symbols is the
phallus (linga), which can be found outside temples,
it is surrounded by a circle which represent the
vagina called yoni.
Siva is linga, Sakti is
yoni. The symbols express the creation of the world, and thereby a much deeper
meaning than just the sexual act. Sakti is the
incarnated femininity, working as guru for male gods, a timeless archetype, mothergoddess, risen to the
highest dignity in Hindu cosmogony.
Because
of Saktis despotic situation, she appears in many
shapes. In the shape of Parvati and Uma, daughter of
As
a creative and lifegiving mother she calls to all
living things, good and loving, but are as her male consort in the same breath
both destructive and creative.
Saktis most dynamic aspect; Durga (difficult of access), the name was taken by the
aspect Devi, when she overcame the demon with similar
name. She is both protective and to her enemies lethal, she takes the form with
many arms, wieling swords and spears as in the myth
of her battle with the mountaindemon (asura) called Mahisha. In parts
of India Durga is adored as Kali, but are recognized
by her attribute, the phanter, and sometimes her husbands trident.
From
a mystical point of view, Sakti represents the
supreme realization of truth. the state beyond
manifestation, the paramatman. Through Saktis most horrifying aspect; Kali, Kalika
or Chandi, she also symbolize the time and the everlasting
cycles of nature and hence she both gives life and destroys it.
It
would not be wrong to see the brutality as a growing process. The earliest
images of Kali has not the negative attributes to them, but are more seen as a
creative power as in the cosmogony, where she plays an important meaning as
time. The Appearance of Kali is described as a hideous four-armed emanciated with fanglike teeths,
who devours all beings (sometimes the image differs and
increase its number of arms). The lower left arm holds a bloody severed
head from that of a demon or giant (muda), the upper
left arm wields a sword (khadga). With her right
upper arm she makes a geasture of fearlessness and
with the lower hand she confers benefits. These two arms are raised to bless
the worshipper. Her hands end in claws. The meaning of the severed head is that
there is no escape from time, and that individual lives and deaths are merely
minute episodes in the time continuum. This is also the significance of her
association with crematoria and burial grounds. Taken from the Tantra is the image of Virya-Kali.
Visualized in the centre of an aura of blinding light and contemplated as the
innermost vibrancy (spande) of consciousness. She has
six faces and her hair is wreathed with flames. She adorned with the severed
heads and dismembered limbs of the lower deities, she
rides on the shoulders of Kalagnirudra. In this form
she has twelve hands which carries a noose, a goad, a
severed head, a sword, a shield, a trident-khatvanga
(skull-topped staff), a thunderbolt (vajra), a
ringing bell, a damaru-drum, a skull-cup, a knife, a
bleeding heart and a elephant-hide. The weapons denote her powers of
destruction.
The
Rudra who forms her vehicle (vahana)
is black on one side of the body and red on the other, symbolizing the two
breaths, the ingoing (apana) and the outgoing (prana). Tantra also mention Here Mahakali (great Kali), which is worshipped in the form of a
black circle a vermilion border surrounded by a ring of twelve such circles
containing Kalis who differ her in their names but
are identical in appearance.
Kali
is often seen naked, with only ‘ornaments’ in form of earrings made from little
children, a necklace of snakes, one of skulls and another made from the heads
of her sons, and a belt from which hang demons’ hands. Her nakedness indicates
that she has stripped off all the veils of existence and the illusion (maya) arising from them. Her only garment is space. Thus
she also described as black, the colour in which all
distinctions are dissolved; or she is eternal night, in which she stands upon
‘non-existence’, the static but potentially dynamic state that precedes
manifestation. The unmanifest is represented by the
corpse (sava) of her husband
Siva on which she stands. In some pictures she is seen dancing on Siva which
has the name Kala (time) who lies down, with one eye
open, this is a symbolic scene, which leads to speculation. The mother or the
‘little time’ dances upon the ‘big time’ or the ‘eternity’ (another name for
Siva). She had conquered and subdued her own husband. Siva is also recognized
in a dubbelfigure (Shiva-shava)
under Kali. Her body is smeared with blood, an interest developed after killing
the demon Raktavira whom Brahma (the supreme god, the
creating force) had granted a boon whereby every drop of blood which fell from
his body was able to produce thousand more like him. The only way in which Kali
could kill him therefore was to hold him up, pierce him with a spear and drink
all his blood as it gushed out. She is often portrayed with a tongue hanging
out and her mouth dripping of blood.
Kali
is the goddess of all plagues, earthquakes, floodings
and storms and in temple paintings seen with a pair of scissors, which she uses
to cut the thread of life, and thereby becoming death. But she is also a
destroyer of ignorance and act as the maintainer of world order and blesses
those who strive for knowledge, a symbol for her own knowledge is her third eye
(saiva), which is often
identified with the pineal gland, the third eye is an organ used to observe the
astral world. it is placed on her forehead together
with the moon-sickle of Siva ( jata) which represents
fertility and creative principle.
The
insatiable appetite for blood, her cruel and wild character, the
snakes entwined round her neck. the skulls and her
fearless sexuality is for the modern western society a unbelievable way for a
goddess to behave. Kali probably the last of the ‘vampire-gods’, still
worshipped openly through blood sacrifices, today by animals, not to long ago
by humans. Hindus’ believe it to be folly not to accept the dark and
destructive parts of nature aswell as the good sides.
Everything is divine, and should be worshipped.