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Kali's next important inroad into the mainstream was her sudden elevation into the role of being a wife of Shiva. It was, in a sense, inevitable. Both are
wild outsider gods totally indecorous and oblivious to convention, living
in inhospitable terrain and associating with all the freaks and oddballs
in creation. The difference being that Shiva is presumed to be an ultra
cultured and civilized person who chooses to live so out of caprice and
a peculiar sense of humor, while Kali is essentially wild and untamable.
She can be worshipped by civilization but never be subsumed by it. Unlike
most other goddesses who were put firmly in place by being married off to
supposedly superior male gods, Kali's marriage did nothing to tame her.
This is exemplified in the many stories popular in South India as to how
Shiva had a trying time with his turbulent wife and he usually chooses a
dance competition to show her that he is the Great God and must be obeyed.
Mortifyingly, the wild Kali has no problem matching anything that Shiva
Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance can come up with. Finally he dances in the
Udharva Tandava posture, a movement that is indecorous in the extreme. Kali
refuses to follow suit, because she is not deliberately shameless and he
'wins'. It has long been recognized as a hollow victory though there are
some feeble attempts to interpret it as Kali finally learning modesty.
Another story represents Kali as being battle drunk as well as blood drunk.
She killed and drank so much blood that she lost her balance and went
on a demented dance of destruction across the universe. Shiva alone
has the courage to approach her and he knows she will require a severe
shock to snap her out of this madness. He throws himself on the ground
in her path and she inadvertently steps on him. Even in her berserker
state she realizes something unusual has happened, it is after all Shiva.
Recognizing whom she had stepped on, she is mortified and bites her tongue
in embarrassment. The dance stops immediately. This rather naïve
story casts Kali as an extremely simple soul who respects her great
husband but that is only the obvious take on it. The symbolic element
in it is very clear also. Even Kali the terrible can only deal with
so much death and destruction before one goes mad. Wrath that has run
out of control has long been recognized as a form of illness, if not
downright madness, in India. Wrath is the absence of consciousness
and the only person who can give you back that vital component of your
Psyche is Shiva - who is Pure Consciousness himself. In a real sense,
every time you lose it because of rage, you are stomping all over Shiva.
The shock of recognition implies that consciousness is again functioning
and the passions recede to their proper position as servants not as
masters. The tongue is the prime symbol of passions as it is the center
for taste, which is regarded as the core passion. Once you can control
your craving, not for food as such but for rasa, flavor in all its connotations,
you have won over your passions. Kali's biting of the tongue is the
acknowledgement of such control over the passions, but it was possible
only when an outburst of rage revealed how fragile and easily lost the
Conscious Awareness of Life is.
With the Tantrik tradition gaining importance from the eighth century however,
Kali achieved a tremendous growth spurt in importance. She was clearly
designated as Prakriti, the active energizing principle of the universe,
and Shiva was merely Purusha, the passive male component. So much so
that there is a saying that, "Without Shakti (Kali) Shiva is merely
a Shava (corpse)." She was declared to be the supreme figure of
godhood and all the other gods, including Shiva, were mere props to
reflect her glory. This led to the classic Tantrik representation of
a rampant fully armed Kali standing on the supine body of her husband.
The symbolism behind that picture is far too elaborate to be dealt with
in this article. Particularly the left-hand path of tantra, with its
somewhat bizarre rituals, found Kali an ideal goddess. They even devised
a 'heroic' form of worship (vira bhavana), which involved confronting
the goddess in all her malevolence and refusing to be cowed down.
That apparently resulted in liberation of the soul , not to mention
the possession of myriad goodies for the rest of your life. Some of
the assertions of Kali supremacy did not sit well with rival sects
especially the Vaishnavas, and there were frequent skirmishes over turf. A
typical example goes thus. The Vaishnavas declared that, "Krishna is
the boat man who ferries the soul across the ocean of existence."
The Kali worshippers, angered by this assumption of salvation,
retorted. "Our Mother is the ruler of the universe and does not time for
petty tasks like this, which is why she appointed that fellow Krishna
to do the job!" Sometimes you can buy calendars with popular bazaar
paintings on it that show Kali with an escort, a little Krishna running
ahead of her like a herald and a tough looking Hanuman guarding the
rear of her cavalcade. The implications are obvious.
In the years to come, the devotional poetry of Bengal would do much to
soften her rough edges and portray her as an essentially loving mother
though she may act crazy by our limited human lights. Ramaprasad Sen
and then Ramakrishana Paramahansa were the two most important figures
in the 18th and 19th centuries where this process was concerned, though
many others contributed to the genre. The attitude is that of a child
who conquers the mother through sheer stubborn love. By hurling oneself
without reservation onto the mercy and protection of the Mother, one
gains everything. It was a remarkable project, to transform an essentially
flinty goddess into an epitome of mercy and gentleness, but astoundingly
they pulled it off. There are many people who are innocently unaware
of Kali's gloomy history of evolution and they find it incomprehensible
that Kali is regarded as anything other than a gentle goddess. That
does not take away from the awesome reality of Kali; it merely shows
that the mind of man is capable of many things.
Why is this bloodthirsty, unruly and supremely violent aspect of godhood
so enduringly popular? Many answers have been attempted, and all of
them are plausible, where they are not manifestly stupid. To attempt
to classify and codify a phenomenon like Kali is an effort foredoomed.
My personal take on the great Black Goddess is that she is the Living
Personification of the Shadow. Kali is everything in human life and
human nature that we would prefer to deny and ignore and smugly assign
to the unenlightened past - until we have a crisis and all of the despised
elements of the psyche come roaring out to take over the mind and soul.
Kali represents the dark, which is as much a component of life as
light. To deny the Shadow is to empower it in secret and it will
extract a terrible vengeance when it finally breaks free. Kali however,
brings all these unpleasant realities straight to the surface of the
consciousness where you have no choice but to acknowledge them as
well as to attempt to transcend them. Maturity is to accept
and acknowledge one's faults and flaws but not be controlled by them.
Immaturity is the opposite, the denial that there is anything wrong
with one's shining perfection. Kali is therefore a constant reminder
of the dark side, as well as a constant invitation to grasp the nettle
of maturity. She is a dramatic visual symbol of an old, old truth that
has found its twentieth century avatar in the inelegant but expressive
phrase, "Shit Happens." To live is to risk, to encounter pain and
loss and grief and anger, and above all, to live is to die. A Kali
worshipper never loses sight of these truths, and being so firmly grounded
in reality is not at the mercy of every buffet of emotion that arises
either without or within.
In Calcutta, even today the festival of Kali puja actually sees her worship
being done on cremation grounds. It is a fantastic sight. There is this
joyous revelry, utmost piety and there are corpses being licked by the
flames of the pyres, one of the names of which is Kali too. The fear
of death is certainly overcome, but believe you me, you don't feel any
grasping attachment to life either. Everything falls into perspective.
Seeing Kali through the smoke and flame of a funeral pyre is to suddenly
realize the symbolic truths in her wild appearance. The curved and
bloodied sword she holds is the death of ignorance and self-deception.
The long and unruly free flowing hair is the freedom from artificial
constraints imposed by social expectations. (Women are supposed to bind
up their hair in Indian culture, Kali as usual being a flamboyant exception.)
Her nudity is the freedom of the realized person who does not need any
barriers between her and the world. Mahavira and the Jains had to face
tremendous opposition for this habit of going nude too. It distressed
society too much, aroused too many anxieties about the collapse of one's
social persona. Many people are held together only by their clothes,
having no personalities of their own to do the job. The girdle of severed
hands signifies the end of covetousness and greed, of grasping.
Once you have seen and realized death you realize that a human life
has more to it than merely money grubbing. The upraised hand of Kali
in the Abhaya mudra, the granting of fearlessness, indicates that death
is only a passing over into the true nature of the soul - Freedom. In
a very concrete sense life becomes more real - keener, more enjoyable
- because you are constantly aware, unlike all others who unconsciously
assume immortality, that it will not last forever.
To worship Kali is to realize that death is a necessary and inevitable
consequence of having fully lived.
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