Kālī, the Ultimate Fierce Feminine

Abstract

In Tantric belief systems, reality is seen as the result of the interaction between the male element—Śiva—and the female—Śakti—and Tantra is considered a śākta or Devī (“goddess”) worship.¹ Such medieval Tamil literary texts as Silapadikaram express the śākta philosophy portraying the goddess as the supreme deity, the embodiment of wisdom adored by all gods. In fact, Śiva is described as part of Śakti, and the Brahman and Śakti are one. The goddess Kālī exists in all forms and is identified with Śakti. She is “the origin and destroyer of all things” and “the symbol of the absolute, beyond name and form, beyond individuality and specificity … [She is] the innermost essence of reality.”²

Devoutly I call to mind Her, the Mother of the whole universe, Śivé Herself.

—Karpūrādi-stotra, “Invocation” 17

Who can explain Your play, Mother?

What do You take, what give back?

You give and take again.

—Sen 18

Kālī, the ultimate creator, preserver, and destroyer, is the epitome of the types of goddesses we are looking at in this book, in many ways the opposite of what we think of in connection with the word “woman” or “goddess.” She is the primordial wilderness and chaos, the original form of all things and eternity, but also change—time, destruction, and death:

O you who, in the form of minutes, moments and other divisions of time, bring about change in things, and have (thus) the power to destroy the universe.

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Salutation be to you, O Narayani, you who have the power of creation, sustentation and destruction and are eternal. (Devīmāhātmyam Ch. 11: 9, 11)

She is without beginning or end,

Whose Body is imagined to be blue of colour,

Because like the blue sky She pervades the world …

is imagined to be black

Because She is colourless …

as the Virat, the Witness of the world past, present and future

She sees everything.

(Karpūrādi-stotra, “Prayer” 44)