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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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