The Book of Kali

by Seema Mohanty

  Subsequent Puranas such as the Shiva, Linga, Vamana, Matsya, Bhagavat, and the Devi Bhagavata contain narratives through which Kali’s position within the orthodox fold in relation to other deities, both male and female, was clearly established. In most places, she was seen as a wild form of Uma-Parvati—the consort of Shiva, and the mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya—who needed to be tamed for the sake of cosmic stability.

  Interestingly, in Bengal where mainstream devotional movements inspired by Chaitanya often crossed paths with popular Tantrik beliefs and customs, Kali came to be identified with another dark god, the cowherd Krishna, perhaps in a spirit of syncretism. This trend reaches its peak in the Tantraraja Tantra, where it is said that having already charmed the world of men, the Devi took a male form as Krishna and then proceeded to enchant women. The Kalivilasa Tantra, a Bengali work, states that Krishna was born as the son of the golden Gauri and turned black when he was excited by passion. In the Todala Tantra, each of the ten Maha-Vidyas, forms of the supreme Devi, has her own male counterpart and here Krishna is said to be the spouse of Kali.

  Despite this, Kali continued to be treated with ambivalence by orthodox Brahminical traditions, owing to her association with cremation grounds, untouchable castes and tribals, and her fondness for flesh, blood and alcohol.

  Into the mainstream

  Kali worship in mainstream religion had less to do with her mention in Tantrik texts or Puranic scriptures, and more to do with her identification with village-goddess cults such as Bhagavati of Kerala, Yellamma of Karnataka, Kalu Bai of Maharashtra, Tara of Bengal, Bhadra-Kali of Andhra, Kalika Mata of Gujarat and Rajasthan, and Mari Amman of Tamil Nadu. She is the fierce guardian of the frontiers, the dark side of grama-devi who threatens disease and disaster unless appeased with blood-sacrifices, self-mutilation, hook-swinging, fire-walking and offerings of bridal finery.

  As Kali moved from esoteric Tantrik rites into household shrines, the idea of a goddess who disregards conventional ethics and morality became unpalatable. There was a conscious effort to make her culturally more sensitive and ethically more responsible. Thus in the following narrative from Adbhuta Ramayana the tables are turned, with Kali’s blessings, on the sorcerer who tries to sacrifice Rama.

  Rama raised an army of monkeys and launched an attack on the island-kingdom of Lanka to rescue his wife Sita who had been abducted by the demon-king Ravana. Fearing Rama would be successful in his mission, Ravana sought the help of his son Mahi-Ravana, a sorcerer. Mahi-Ravana abducted Rama and took him to his subterranean kingdom, intent on sacrificing him to the goddess Kali. Rama’s monkey-lieutenant, Hanuman, followed Mahi-Ravana to the temple of Kali, where he learnt from the goddess that she did not desire the blood of Rama. With her help, Hanuman devised a plan to outwit Mahi-Ravana. When it was time for the sacrifice, Rama refused to place his head on the altar, as advised by Hanuman. ‘I am a prince. I have never bowed my head. Show me how,’ said Rama. Mahi-Ravana was forced to demonstrate. He lowered his head on the altar. No sooner had Mahi-Ravana’s neck touched the altar than Hanuman rushed forward and beheaded the sorcerer. Kali drank the sorcerer’s blood and blessed Rama and Hanuman. Since that day, Hanuman has become the guardian of Kali temples.

  In the seventeenth century, Kali’s characterization underwent a radical change in Bengal. Rather than being visualized as an emaciated bloodthirsty crone, she came to be seen as a voluptuous beauty. Lofty spiritual meanings were propped up wherever her image was unsettling. This loss of fierceness had its roots in a devotional movement popularized by the Tantrik Krishnanda Agamavagisha, who in his Tantrasara described for the first time, amongst other things, what is now the standard form of Dakshina-Kali.

  Devotees began visualizing Kali as a ‘loving caring mother’, thanks to the songs of the mystic Ramprasad Sen (1718–75) who had visions of her. Legend has it that Ramprasad had obtained a job as a bookkeeper with an accountant. However, he wrote Tara—the name by which he addressed Kali—all over in the ledgers. The employer saw this and recognized a saint in the making. Ramprasad used to wade into the river Ganga and sing the songs in honour of the divine mother. Boats sailing down the Ganga would stop to listen to his songs, people dying on the banks of the river would ask Ramprasad to sing to them. He soon became the favourite of the king. His songs had a profound impact on local culture. The nineteenth-century saint Ramakrishna, guru of Swami Vivekananda, often quoted the songs during his discourses.

  O Mother! You have great dissolution in your hand;

  Shiva lies at your feet, absorbed in bliss.

  You laugh aloud, striking terror

  Streams of blood flow from your limbs.

  O Tara, doer of good, the good of all, giver of safety,

  O Mother, grant me safety.

  O Mother Kali! Take me in your arms

  O Mother Kali! Take me in your arms

  O Mother! Come now as Tara with a smiling face and clad in white;

  As dawn descends on dense darkness of the night.

  O Mother! Terrific Kali! I have worshipped you alone so long.

  My worship is finished; now O Mother, bring down your sword.

  It was through the images and songs of this Bengali devotional movement and the influence it had on Bengali scholars who interacted with the West, such as Swami Vivekananda and Shri Aurobindo, that Kali became known across the world. A great contribution to the understanding of Kali was also made by Sir John Woodroffe (1865–1936), who, while serving as a High Court judge in Kolkata during the British Raj, found time to translate little-known Tantrik texts and comment on them without the typical European condescension under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon.

  The Metamorphosis

  Kali’s unconventional form has made her the central figure in many strategic political discourses. The most popular of these was the nineteenth-century propaganda of the British East India Company that made her the patron of highway robbers known as Thugs. Around the same time, Bengali intellectuals, tired of apologizing and defending Hindu practices including the macabre rites associated with Tantra and linked to Kali, transformed the goddess into Bharat Mata, a powerful symbol of the oppressed motherland who sought liberation from the foreign yoke. In the twentieth century, Kali’s rejection of patriarchal values made her a powerful symbol within the feminist movement. She also caught the attention of New Age writers seeking to shed the Judeo-Christian-Islamic legacy of the West, and reclaim Devi worship. Kali’s ambivalence has inspired the creative mind and led to her incorporation in many works of fiction, though not always in a flattering light.

  Devi of Thugs

  Between the cities of Allahabad and Benaras, where the Vindhya mountain range touches the southern bank of the holy Ganga, in a town known as Vindhyachal stands the temple complex devoted to the goddess Vindyavasini, a form of Durga. Not far from this shrine is the temple of Kalikhoh, believed to be the central shrine of the Thugs who became infamous thanks to the writings of many officers of the British East India Company.

  The officers wrote that Thugs lived outwardly respectable lives, usually as craftsmen. But for a few weeks each year they dedicated themselves to the slaughter that was their act of worship. Operating far from home to avoid being recognized, gangs of ten to fifty Thugs lured victims to their death through deception. They joined traders and pilgrims and accompanied them until a chance for murder arose. When the time was right, the assassins approached victims from behind, and strangled them with rumals or handkerchiefs, all the while whispering to Kali to watch. The following story was told to explain this bizarre practice:

  When Kali was confronted by the demon Rakta-bija who could reproduce clones of himself from every drop of his blood, she created out of her sweat two fierce warriors—Kala Bhairav and Gora Bhairav. Kali gave them two rumals with instructions to strangulate the Rakta-bija clones so that no blood was spilt on the ground. The Thugs were descendants of the two Bhairavs, who strangulated their victims to demonstrate their devotion to the family deity.


  Some travellers were spared the attack. Women, for instance, were usually spared in deference to Kali’s gender. So were hermits and craftsmen. Lepers and cripples were exempt, since the thugs feared contamination. Not wanting to risk reprisal from colonial rulers, the killers never molested Europeans either. Most preferred victims were men from the upper castes—either Brahmins, or baniyas (traders), or Rajputs (warriors).

  In 1826, Colonel William Sleeman, the civil administrator of the Jubbulpore (Jabalpur) district in Central India, set about suppressing the Thugs. He turned to captured Thugs to augment his information about the secret brotherhood, breaking their code of silence with offers of clemency. Entire gangs were rounded up and subjected to harsh punishment. By 1840, over 3500 Thugs were tried and 500 were hanged. By 1858, except for isolated outbreaks, the reign of Thug terror came to an end. (Some of the reformed Thugs became skilled carpet weavers, so skilled that one of their carpets was commissioned by Queen Victoria for Windsor Castle.)

  Although the tale of this bizarre cult of thieves has since captured the imagination of the people across the world, inspiring many novels and films, recent research by scholars such as Stewart N. Gordon has convincingly shown that the Thugs were neither a religious order nor any kind of organized, homogeneous group. Those labelled as Thugs were in fact teams of marauding soldiers—both Hindu and Muslim—from various regions who stole and killed not out of religious compulsion but from economic and political motives. They were ordered by their leaders to extort cash needed for purchasing weapons and paying mercenaries who would fight with the British. Many of these soldiers worshipped Kali, not because she ‘gave power to those who quenched her thirst for blood’, but merely because she was the traditional patron of martial orders in the region. Since their activities hurt the economic and political ambitions of the British East India Company, they were strategically, systematically, and successfully stigmatized through propaganda writings that took advantage of the ambivalent feelings of the masses towards Kali. The British then proceeded to wipe out these bands of thieves in the 1830s. During this period, anyone associated with the Vindhyachal temples, especially Kalikhoh, became suspect, particularly if he belonged to a warrior caste. As a result, the temple of Kali turned into a dilapidated condition. Even today, locals take great pains to dissociate the shrine from Thugs and their ‘bizarre’ rites. So much so that people deny the Tantrik roots of both Kali and Vindhyavasini, and prefer to view her as a milder, Vedic, vegetarian goddess.

  Demon mother

  While the tale of the thugs and their association with Kali may have been a strategic narrative of British colonialists to generate popular opinion against their political enemies, it was based on popular beliefs about Kali that associate her with thieves (as we find in the story of Bharata in the Bhagavata Purana) and sorcerers (in the story of Mahi-Ravana in the Adbhuta Ramayana). Such has been the success of the Thug narrative that it has, since the nineteenth century, inspired many novels and films where Kali plays a central role. In the Jules Verne classic Around the World in Eighty Days, we learn:

  The travellers crossed, beyond Malligaum, the fatal country so often stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali … It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway. These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over without corpses being found in every direction. The English Government has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites … All this portion of Bundelcund, which is little frequented by travellers, is inhabited by a fanatical population, hardened in the most horrible practices of the Hindoo faith.

  In the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, second of the Indiana Jones trilogy, created by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, the villain is one Mola Ram, chief of the Thugs, enslaver of children, the ‘shaman’ who sacrifices humans to satisfy Kali’s thirst for blood and obtain magical powers from her. Such unflattering portrayal of Kali is also seen in the American television series ‘The Far Pavilion’, where Kali is the patron deity of the villainous old king and is described as the ‘black goddess of death and drinker of blood’. In the British television series ‘The Jewel in the Crown’, when an Englishwoman expresses her desire to see a ‘Hindoo’ temple, the only temple the director wishes to show, of all the gods and goddesses in the Hindu pantheon, is the one of Kali.

  While the description of Kali in these novels and films is not incorrect, the focus is clearly on the dark and demonic sides of the goddess, one that has the ability to shock readers/viewers and satisfy their search for the exotic in India. The resulting fallout has been that Kali, with her fondness for sacrifice and links with the occult, has become in the eyes of many the Hindu counterpart of the Devil. This is ironic and unfortunate, as Hinduism does not endorse the concept of evil so critical in Judeo-Christian-Islamic thought. There is no Devil in Hindu mythology either. In the Hindu worldview, things may be socially inappropriate, but everything is a manifestation of the divine. Negative events are explained not as the work of the Devil but as results of bad karma. Fierce deities, such as Kali, with their macabre rites are never seen as demons—only as the darker aspects of divinity. To the Western eye, informed by the Biblical discourse, such ideas made little sense. The only way an image of a naked female deity who demands blood sacrifice can make sense is by viewing her as loathsome, terrible, malignant—the Indian counterpart of the Biblical Lilith, the Devil’s concubine and the mother of demons.

  When Indian filmmakers produce horror films based on Hollywood scripts they often find it difficult to identify a local counterpart of the Devil and end up force-fitting Kali in the role. The problems with this approach are obvious. In the intial part of the film, Kali is represented as the patron of the villain, giving him magical powers when he offers her the blood of innocents. In the final act of the film, after hearing the hero’s passionate appeal, she turns against the villain and becomes the divine deliverer. The ambivalence towards Kali is evident in Bollywood films such as Karan Arjun and teleserials like ‘Kya Haadsa, Kya Hakikat’. Kali remains the favourite of filmmakers trying to scare their audience. Thus in Sangharsh, a film based on the Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer is a deranged male-to-female transvestite who believes that he will attain immortality by sacrificing young children to, who else but, Kali.

  Bharat Mata

  The arrival of Western education systems in India in the nineteenth century forced Indians to accept the backward nature of many traditional beliefs and customs such as child marriage and caste system. Exposed to Western ideology and Christianity, many intellectuals were embarrassed by many things Hindu, including worship of plants, animals and idols. This led to Hindu Renaissance in the nineteenth century, during which a concerted effort was made to reform Indian society and cleanse Hinduism of outdated practices.

  An offshoot of this cultural movement was the belief in Indian nationhood. The belief expressed itself through the idea of Bharat Mata, the goddess who embodied the Indian nation. She was the mother of all Indians and it was the duty of all Indians to protect her honour without regard for personal hardship and sacrifice.

  Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s novel Anandamath played a critical role in the popularity of this idea. In the novel, the hero Mahendra finds that the image of the unfamiliar goddess Bharat Mata is no different from that of the familiar Kali. He is informed that Kali’s dark, gaunt, dishevelled and naked figure indicates a nation that has been reduced to poverty, nakedness and chaos by foreign rulers. The severed arms that adorn Kali’s waist as a girdle are the arms of devotees who will have to be sacrificed before the mother can be freed from her foreign yoke.

  Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Kali is not the object of worship. Her form has no mystical significance. She is simply a symbol of the
condition of India under the British rule: a place of sickness, death, poverty and exploitation. This interpretation of Kali’s nakedness reveals the discomfort of the nineteenth-century Indian intellectual with the form of Kali. He could not explain her nakedness, her unabashed sexuality, her bloodlust, her association with thieves and sorcerers either to himself or to the British rulers of the land, or to missionaries who were eager to associate Kali-worship with primitive superstition, witchcraft and Satanic rites. By giving her form a political interpretation, the Indian intellectual found himself no longer on the backfoot. In fact, it gave him the springboard to challenge the then-existing political condition.

  Goddess in feminism

  The idea of a goddess who steps on a male deity and does not assume a form that is pleasing to the male eye has great appeal to feminists, both in India and in the West. This has led to Kali becoming the patron goddess of many feminists in the twentieth century.

  Kali has helped many feminist writers by serving as the perfect symbol that affirms the female body, female sexuality, female anger and female aggression, which have been silenced or denied for centuries by male-dominated society, apparently to ensure social stability. Overshadowed for centuries by more desirable and benevolent forms of the Devi such as Lakshmi and Gauri, Kali has been found to be more compatible with the reality of a plundered earth and wounded womanhood, poised to strike back and assert itself. Feminists believe that the reality of Kali is so frightening that male narrators and artists have consciously chosen to either sideline or demonize her over the centuries.

  During the freedom struggle, while men saw the Devi as Bharat Mata, a warrior goddess calling them to take up arms on behalf of the country, women began visualizing her as Kali who egged them on to defy patriarchal norms and stand up for their rights. Scholars such as Sumanta Banerjee have uncovered folk songs from eighteenth-century Bengal, sung by women belonging to lower rungs in the socio-economic order, where the defiance and protest is expressed through the imagery of Kali standing on top of her husband, Shiva.