Mahakali () is the
Hindu goddess of time and death in the goddess-centric tradition of
Shaktism
Shaktism ( sa, शाक्त, , ) is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all ...
.
Similar to
Kali, Mahakali is a fierce goddess associated with universal power, time, life, death, and both rebirth and liberation. She is the consort of
Bhairava, the god of consciousness, the basis of
reality and existence. Mahakali, in Sanskrit, is etymologically the feminised variant of
Mahakala
Mahākāla is a deity common to Hinduism and Tantric Buddhism. In Buddhism, Mahākāla is regarded as the sacred ''Dharmapāla'' ("Protector of the Dharma"), while in Hinduism, Mahākāla is a fierce manifestation of the Hindu god Shiva and t ...
, or ''Great Time'' (which is interpreted also as ''
Death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
''), an epithet of the deities
Narasimha and
Shiva
Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hin ...
in Hinduism.
Meaning
Mahakali's origin is contained in various
Puranic and
Tantric Hindu Scriptures (
Shastras). In the texts of
Shaktism
Shaktism ( sa, शाक्त, , ) is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all ...
, she is variously portrayed as the
Adi-Shakti, the Primeval Force of the Universe, identical with the Ultimate Reality, or
Brahman. She is also known as the (female)
Prakriti or World as opposed to the (male)
Purusha or Consciousness, or as one of three manifestations of Mahadevi (The Great Goddess) that represent the three
Gunas or attributes in
Samkhya philosophy. In this interpretation Mahakali represents
Tamas or the force of inertia. A common understanding of the
Devi Mahatmya ("Greatness of the Goddess") text, a later interpolation into the Markandeya Purana, considered a core text of Shaktism (the branch of Hinduism which considers Durga to be the highest aspect of
Godhead
Godhead (from Middle English ''godhede'', "godhood", and unrelated to the modern word "head"), may refer to:
* Deity
* Divinity
* Conceptions of God
* In Abrahamic religions
** Godhead in Judaism, the unknowable aspect of God, which lies beyo ...
), assigns a
different form of the Goddess (
Mahasaraswati,
Mahalakshmi, and Mahakali) to each of the three episodes therein. Here, Mahakali is assigned to the first episode. She is described as an abstract energy, the ''
yoganidra'' of
Vishnu
Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism.
Vishnu is known as "The Preserver" within ...
.
Iconography
Mahakali is most often depicted in blue/black complexion in popular Indian art.
Her most common four armed iconographic image shows each hand carrying variously a crescent-shaped
sword
A sword is an edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed t ...
, a
trishul
Trishul may refer to:
Film
* ''Trishul'' (film), a 1978 Hindi film starring Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan
* ''Trisulam'' (film), a 1982 Telugu film starring Krishnam Raju and Sridevi
Military
*Trishul (missile), a surface-to-air missile deve ...
(trident), a severed head of a demon and a bowl or skull-cup (
kapala) catching the blood of the severed head. Her eyes are described as red with intoxication and in absolute rage, her hair is shown disheveled, small fangs sometimes protrude out of her mouth and her tongue is lolling. The blood of the demons she slays drips out of her lolling tongue, having consumed it. She is adorned with a
garland consisting of the heads of demons she has slaughtered, variously enumerated at
108 (an auspicious number in Hinduism and the number of countable beads on a
Japa Mala, similar to a
rosary, for repetition of
Mantras) or 50, which represents the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet,
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the a ...
, and wears a skirt made of demon arms.
Her ten headed (dashamukhi) image is known as the 10
Mahavidyas Mahakali, and in this form she is said to represent the ten Mahavidyas or "Great Wisdom (Goddess)s". She is sometimes shown sitting on a flaming grave or a rotting corpse. Her complexion is described as that of the night sky, devoid of stars. She is depicted in this form as having ten heads, thirty flaming eyes, ten arms, and ten legs but otherwise usually conforms to the four armed icon in other respects. Each of her ten hands is carrying an implement which varies in different accounts, but each of these represent the power of one of the
devas
Devas may refer to:
* Devas Club, a club in south London
* Anthony Devas (1911–1958), British portrait painter
* Charles Stanton Devas (1848–1906), political economist
* Jocelyn Devas (died 1886), founder of the Devas Club
* Devas (band)
Deva ...
, and are often the identifying weapon or ritual item of a given Deva. The implication is that Mahakali subsumes and is responsible for the powers that these deities possess and this is in line with the interpretation that Mahakali is identical with Brahman. While not displaying ten heads, an "''ekamukhi''" or one headed image may be displayed with ten arms, signifying the same concept: the powers of the various Gods come only through her
grace
Grace may refer to:
Places United States
* Grace, Idaho, a city
* Grace (CTA station), Chicago Transit Authority's Howard Line, Illinois
* Little Goose Creek (Kentucky), location of Grace post office
* Grace, Carroll County, Missouri, an uninc ...
.
In either one of these images she is shown standing on the prone, inert body of Shiva. This is interpreted in various ways but the most common is that Mahakali represents
Shakti, the power of pure
creation
Creation may refer to:
Religion
*'' Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing
*Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it
*Creationism, the belief that ...
in the universe, and Shiva represents pure
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
which is inert in and of itself. While this is an advanced concept in
monistic Shaktism, it also agrees with the
Nondual
Nondualism, also called nonduality and nondual awareness, is a fuzzy concept originating in Indian philosophy and religion for which many definitions can be found, including: nondual awareness, the nonduality of seer and seen or nondif ...
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
A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. S ...
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 her husband in Shaktism, and also the Supreme Godhead in
Shaivism. Another understanding is that the wild destructive Mahakali can only stop her fury in the presence of Shiva the God of Consciousness, so that the balance of life is not completely overrun over by wild nature.
Kashmir Shaivism
In
Kashmir Shaivism, the highest form of Kali is Kalasankarshini, who is ''nirguna'', formless and is often shown as a flame above the head of Guhyakali, the highest gross form of Kali. In Nepali Newar arts, both form and formless attributes of Kali are often envisioned in a single art form showing the hierarchy of goddesses in their tradition. In it, the Guhyakali image culminates in flame, with Kalasankarshini, the highest deity in the sequence, who consumes time within herself and is envisioned solely as a flame representing
Para Brahman. She is like a divine actress in her own universal play who assumes the form and role of Sristi Kali, Rakta Kali, Yama Kali, Samhara Kali, Mrityu Kali, Rudra Kali, Mahakaala Kali, Paramaraka Kali, Kalagnirudra Kali, Martanda Kali, Sthitinasha Kali and Mahabhairavaghorachanda Kali who is none other than Kalasankarshini Kali.
Literature
The ''
Markandeya Purana'' describes Mahakali as
Lakshmi after her slaying of
Sumba and Nisumba:
In the same text, Mahakali is also described to have been created by Mahalakshmi, from her own form:
See also
*
Durga
*
Kali Puja
*
Parvati
*
Tridevi
References
Citations
Works cited
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Other sources
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External links
*
Shri Mahakali Chalisa
{{Time in religion and mythology
Death goddesses
Destroyer goddesses
Forms of Parvati
Hindu goddesses
Mahavidyas
Mother goddesses
Shaktism
Time and fate goddesses
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