Kali: The First Mahavidya, Form, Stories, Temples and Kali Puja

Kali is the first of the ten Mahavidyas and one of the oldest and best known forms of the Goddess. Her name is connected with kala, which means both black and time, and she is sometimes called Kalika or Shyama, “the dark one”. The image of Kali alarms many people at first sight, and the tradition knows it. This page sets out the image, the stories, the temples and the festival as devotees tell them, in a calm way, and treats her as a goddess whom millions of people love as a mother.

The first Mahavidya

Kali comes first in nearly every list of the ten, and in some Tantric traditions she is the chief of the group and the source from which the others come. The tradition of the Kali kula, the family of Kali, treats her as the root goddess of one great stream of Tantra, with Tara and the other fierce forms close to her. The hub page tells the story of Sati by which the ten are said to have appeared, and in some tellings it is Kali who first appears, dark and terrible, and the other nine who follow.

Form and iconography

The best-known image is Dakshina Kali. She has a dark, blue-black complexion, three eyes, loose hair and a lolling tongue. She has four arms: in the upper left she holds a sword, in the lower left a severed head, and the two right hands are raised in the gestures of fearlessness (abhaya) and of giving (varada). She wears a garland of severed heads, often fifty in number, said in the tradition to stand for the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and a girdle of severed arms. She stands on the chest of Shiva, who lies like a corpse.

Devotional and scholarly readings offer several meanings. The dark colour is the colour of all that is formless, as every colour is absorbed by black. The nakedness shows that she is free of illusion. The garland of letters shows that she is the source of language and mantra. The tongue is usually explained as a gesture of modesty or surprise on realising that she has stepped on her husband. The position over Shiva is read as the union of power and consciousness, with Shiva as consciousness that cannot act without Shakti. Other images show Kali in other forms, such as Bhadrakali, Smashana Kali (Kali of the cremation ground) and Mahakali, and they vary by region.

The stories as tradition tells them

The oldest story of Kali is in the Devi Mahatmya, the text of the Goddess in thirteen chapters (see the Durga Saptashati section). In chapter 7, the demons Chanda and Munda, the generals of Shumbha and Nishumbha, come to attack the Goddess Ambika. Ambika is filled with anger, her face turns dark, and from her brow comes Kali, with a sword and noose, a garland of skulls and a tiger skin. She kills the demons and brings their heads to Ambika, who gives her the name Chamunda.

In chapter 8, the demon Raktabija has a boon that each drop of his blood that falls creates another demon like him. The Goddess and the Matrikas fight him, and Kali drinks the blood before it reaches the ground, so that no more demons can arise. The story is also mentioned on the Kalaratri page of the Navadurga section.

A third thread is the Mahabhagavata Purana and Tantric tellings of Sati, in which Kali is the form Sati takes first. She is also, in the Bengali devotional tradition, a mother as well as a warrior. The poet Ramprasad Sen, in the eighteenth century, wrote songs, the Shyama Sangeet, that speak to Kali as a child speaks to a mother, in a loving and sometimes complaining voice, and these songs are still sung in Bengal.

What the form means

In the readings that devotees and teachers give, Kali is time that takes everything, and also the mother who holds everything. The tradition says that she frightens only those who are afraid of change and loss, and that to those who look at her without turning away she gives a kind of freedom from fear. The two hands that give boons and calm are the signs of this. Many people find that a simple description is the best: Kali is the Goddess in the shape that makes no excuses.

The tradition has never held that she is dangerous to her devotees. Fear in the presence of the image is a natural response, and many families keep a small Kali image in the house.

Where she is worshipped

The Kalighat Kali temple in Kolkata is one of the great Shakta shrines of Bengal, and the tradition counts it as one of the Shakti Peethas, the places where parts of Sati’s body are said to have fallen. The Dakshineswar Kali temple, on the Hooghly river north of Kolkata, was built in the nineteenth century by Rani Rashmoni, and is the temple where the saint Ramakrishna served as priest and worshipped the goddess as Bhavatarini, “she who carries across”. Kali is worshipped across India under many names: Mahakali at Ujjain, Kalika Mata at Pavagadh in Gujarat, and Kalka Ji in Delhi are well known examples. In Kerala the Bhadrakali temples are numerous.

We do not give timings, fees or rules. Check each temple’s own site.

Festivals

The great festival is Kali Puja, kept in Bengal, Odisha and Assam on the new moon night of Ashwina, which is the night of Diwali in other parts of India; see the Kali Puja page and the Diwali page. Kali is also worshipped in Durga Puja and Navratri, in the days of Saptami and Ashtami; see the Durga Puja page and the Sharad Navratri page. The jayanti of Kali is given in some calendars in the dark half of Bhadrapada, though the day varies between calendars and we give no date. In Bengal, the festival of Phalaharini Kali Puja, in the month of Jyeshtha, is also kept in some places.

Hymns

A hymn that suits the day is the Devi Suktam, which praises the Goddess as the power in all beings, and the Devi Aparadha Kshamapana Stotram, a hymn that asks forgiveness of the Goddess as a mother. We do not teach any Tantric practice of Kali on this site.

Frequently asked questions