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The Book of Kali

Kali's fierce appearances have been

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modern work...

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Specifications
Item Code: IDD987
by Seema Mohanty
Paperback (Edition: 2009)

Price:

$18.00
$13.50

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Shipping Free

Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

ISBN 978014307641
Language: English
Size: 7.3" X 4.8"
Pages: 150 (B & W Figures: 11)

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Weight of the Book: 135 gms

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Description
From the Jacket :
One of the most unconventional yet immensely popular deities in the Hindu pantheon. Kali
essentially represents the dark and contrary aspect of the cosmos. Her naked form and
association with violence, book and gore challenge the very concept of divinity. Yet, over the
centuries, She has come to represent a whole gamut of conflicting images - from bloodthirsty
ogress to benign goddess. So today while she is venerated as Chamanda, who verges on the
macabre and grotesque. She is also adored in household shrines in one of her milder forms,
Dakshina-Kali.
It is this evolution of Kali - from her origin as a tantric goddess to her metamorphosis into a
divinity in mainstream religion - that Seema Mohanty captures brilliantly in this book. Drawing
upon a variety of sources - tales from the Ramayana, the Tantras and Agamas, folklore and
films - she has succeeded in portraying in engrossing detail the myriad manifestations of the
enigmatic deity that is Kali.
About the Author:
Seema Mohanty is a freelance writer based in Mumbai. She has written this book based on the
lectures and writings of her brother Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, the well-known mythologist.

Introduction
Her outstretched tongue distinguishes her from all other goddesses in the Hindu Pantheon. Her
nakedness unbound hair, association with blood and gore and ubridled sexuality challenge
conventional ideas of divinity. So much so that to the uninformed eye Kali appears less a
manifestation of the divine and more as a bloodthirsty ogress a patron of thugs and sorcerers.
In the quest to understand Kali is essential to appreciate the Hindu concept of the divine.
Hindus visualize the divine in various forms human animal plant and mineral. Each form with
its respective narrative and rituals serves as a gateway to realizing the ultimate unmanifest
godhead. Worshippers of Shiva and Vishnu the two most popular male manifestation of the
divine believe that the male form of the divine represents spiritual reality while the female
form symbolizes material reality Goddess worshippers however associate both material and
spiritual realities with the female divinity the supreme manifestation of the divine and goddess
(one of the several incarnations of Devi) As Goddess Kali embodies both spiritual and material
realities the totality of nature as she creates sustains and destroys the world as goddess she
represents only that aspect of material reality which is world and untamed and complements
Gauri, the radiant and gentle goddess who represents the domesticated and tamed
manifestation of nature.
Worship of the Goddess in India is as ancient as civilization itself, and has its roots in the belief
that the earth is a living being that nourishes all animate objects. The most widely accepted
theory states that when the nomadic cattle-herding Aryans were assimilated into the settled
agricultural communities of the Indian subcontinent almost 4OOO years ago, the maledominated, sky-gazing Vedic deities mingled and merged with the local female-dominated,
earthbound, Dravidian (some may say pre-Aryan tantrik) divinities. From this fusion rose the
goddesses of India who populate not just the Hindu pantheon but also Jam and Buddhist
mythologies.
It is difficult to trace the history of Kali worship in India. Even before the name Kali was first
documented in scriptures, there were references to goddesses (and demo nesses) that allude
to Kali. For example, in the Rig Sambija there is Nirriti, a dark goddess associated with death,

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who was feared and needed to be appeased. In the Jaiminya Brahmana, there is a verse
celebrating the triumph of Indra over Dirgha-jihvi, a long-tongued and lascivious ogress, who
thirsted for the divine drink Soma.
It is also difficult to trace the extent of Kali worship in India. In villages across India,
goddesses are classified as hot and cold. Hot goddesses are wild and angry, threatening
communities with drought and epidemic unless appeased by blood sacrifice. Cold goddesses
are gentle and domestic, who nurture communities with love and tenderness. Hot goddesses
like Bhagavati of Kerala and Yellamma of Karnataka are sometimes referred to as Kali but do
not have the characteristic outstretched tongue. At the same time there are goddesses such as
Korravai, the naked Tamil goddess of war, and Chamunda, the emaciated goddess of
crematoriums, who share Kalis association with blood sacrifices, death and exorcism but do
not share her name.
Narratives, symbols and rituals associated with Kali invariably overlap with those of other
goddesses. Also, what applies to Kali in one part of India need not apply elsewhere. Further,
what was true about Kali in yesteryears may not be true today. All this makes it difficult to
define boundaries in the study of Kali.
Kali is but one of the many goddesses of India, though undoubtedly the most popular. Her
fame owes a great deal to European Imperialism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as
well as to Radical Feminism of the twentieth century. While for the former, this exotic and
ghoulish deity validated the urgent need to convert and civilize the natives, for the latter, this
defiant goddess was a manifestation of the female collective unconscious that sought liberation
from male-dominated regimes.
Despite her popularity, Kali remains an enigma to most people including Hindus. Her macabre
persona defies explanation and forces one to be defensive or apologetic. This book makes a
conscious effort to unconditionally accept the stories images and rituals through which the idea
of Kali has been communicated over the ages. By doing so it hopes to decode the meaning
behind the macabre and help the reader gain an insight into the Hindu approach to the divine.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Form

The Manifestations

19

The Tales

39

The Worship

71

The Origin

87

The Metamorphosis

107

The Wisdom

123

Conclusion

133

Hymns

139

Acknowledgements

149

Sample Pages

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Customer Comments
wud like this book< can u post it for me.
- shiva sheldon beepat
10th Jul 2011

would like to know the particular

pary to worship
- shiva sheldon beepat
23rd May 2009

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The Book of Kali

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please can you email me the story of this book

- nitasha
6th Feb 2008

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