Kali, the Hindu goddess of creation and destruction, is a site of contradictions. She is both feared and revered, and her worship is often associated with discomfort. Nevertheless, her devotees see her as a mother who delights in their childlike qualities and offers liberation. This article looks at Kali as a Divine Mother–a bad mother.
One of the most striking aspects of Kali’s depiction is her appearance. She has dark skin, blue or black, a lolling tongue, and multiple arms, each holding a weapon or symbolic object. She wears a garland of severed heads and a skirt of severed human arms. Her hair is wild as she dances, intoxicated by the blood of demons.
Despite her fearsome appearance, Kali is a wife and mother–a terrifying, immodest, aggressive one. Unlike Parvati, for example, who is the mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya, Kali doesn’t have any children. Hindu legends and iconography rarely depicted Kali as a motherly figure. In the 18th century, Bengali devotional literature began to paint her as a mother, and her children were her devotees. While the Tantric traditions emphasised confronting her fearsomeness through practices such as worshipping her at the cremation grounds, the Bengali devotees adopted a child’s attitude.
Kali, the bad mother
According to the Bengali poets, Kali is a bad mother. She is neglectful, causes suffering, and brings ruin. Kali teaches her devotees to accept the way things are (bad, apparently) and reconcile with death. Many lively poems in Bengali literature criticise the goddess for her appearance and behaviour. The poets call her stingy, hard-hearted, and even accuse her of showing favouritism in her treatment of her children (her devotees).
The Sakta poet Dinram wrote:
“You are a brazen woman
making love in the dominant position.
You’ve got no shame, no clothes,
and Your hair flies all over the place.”
Although that sounds good to my modern feminist sensibilities, the poets scold and berate Kali for displaying the opposite of traditional expectations of being a wife and mother. While Kali is not a feminist principle in India and exists within patriarchal structures, there are examples of women turning to Kali (and other goddesses) in their struggle for survival. Kali not only triggers fear of wild female sexuality, but in her destructive dance, she also creates her reality.
Kali's children
Despite their many complaints, the Sakta poets remained committed to her. Sakta refers to Shaktism, which places the feminine at the centre of worship and emphasises intense love and devotion, or bhakti, of the goddess(es). Bhakti may be described as an erotic bond, complete dependence akin to a servant and their master, or the bond between a mother and a child demanding her attention. Ramprasad Sen, an 18th-century Bengali poet and one of Kali’s most famous devotees, characterises his relationship with the goddess in this manner. Kali is the Divine Mother, and he is a petulant, quarrelsome child who feels neglected and throws tantrums. He calls her “extremely unfair” and says she doesn’t listen.
In one poem, Ramprasad Sen says:
I’ll die of mental anguish.
My story is unbelievable,
what will people say
when they hear it?
The son of the World-Mother
is dying of hunger pangs!
The one You keep in happiness,
is he Your favourite child?
Am I so guilty that I can’t even get a little salt
with my spinach?
Seeing how such a poem is a devotional prayer may be challenging. This body of literature reveals a few things. In contemporary Paganism, devotion to goddesses and gods tends to be reverent, but this isn’t a universal or even a historical approach to worship. There are many examples of practitioners demanding, coercing, and punishing deities if they don’t get what they want, particularly in magical practices. This type of prayer poem may reveal an attitude of entitlement. At the very least, it shows longing.
Second, insulting prayer poems may reveal the confusion around a goddess that doesn’t easily fall within the Madonna-whore dichotomy. Even though the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud identified this psychological complex and it is intimately linked with the West, women’s sexual expression is restricted and controlled in all patriarchal cultures. Kali reflects male fears around female sexuality and she exceeds what is allowed by the traditional construction of “mother”.
The Cosmic Mother
Although the Sakta poets relate to Kali as a human mother, she is not a stand-in for women. They understand that her motherhood is not biological. Kali is a cosmic principle, a force, and the active principle in generation. Her consort, Shiva, is subordinate to her. It should be noted, however, that Ramprasad Sen believed any girl or woman could be a manifestation of Kali. There is a famous story of the goddess visiting him in the form of a “radiant girl”.
Kali is a Divine Mother because she helps us overcome our fears, specifically of death for the Bengali poets, and to escape the cycle of reincarnation. She confronts us with a vision of the world that is chaotic and out of control and helps us see what is eternal.
In The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krsna- Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology, Professor of Religion David Kinsley wrote:
“The image of Kali, in a variety of ways, teaches man that pain, sorrow, decay, death, and destruction are not to be overcome or conquered by denying them or explaining them away. Pain and sorrow are woven into the texture of man’s life so thoroughly that to deny them is ultimately futile and foolish. For man to realize the fullness of his being, for man to exploit his potential as a human being, he must finally accept his dimension of existence. Kali’s boon is freedom, the freedom of the child to revel in the moment, and it is won only after confrontation of death.”
Conclusion
Bengali literature on Kali is rich and contains a lot more than complaints. A famine struck Bengal between 1769 and 1770 that affected 30 million people. So, complaining to the gods about how hard life was is understandable. But the tradition also includes poems and songs of adoration and devotion, describing the goddess as a tender, loving mother, a font of compassion, and a saviour.
In surrendering to Kali, she offers transcendence of selfhood and spiritual liberation. In my experience of Kali, she does not care whether you worship her; she is eternally performing her cosmic dance. But she is receptive and welcoming if you approach her. I ask Kali to grant me your boundless freedom, to remove my illusions and burn away my ignorance and limitations for the benefit of all beings.
