Mahakaali

Mahakali

 

Kali is one of the fearful and ferocious form of mother goddess. Mother Kali's ferocious form is strewed with powerful symbols. Kali comes from Sanskrit root word 'kaal' which means time. It's often seen that due to her ferocious iconography the divine mother in her form as Kali is most misunderstood goddess.

Her black complexion symbolizes her all-embracing and transcendental nature. Mahanirvana Tantra says,"just as all colour disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in her". Her nudity is primeval, fundamental and transparent in nature - the earth, the sea, and the sky. Kali is free from illusionary covering, for she is beyond maya or "false consciousness". Her black/blue/dark skin is the representation of the womb of the quantum unmanifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve.

Kali is seen as the goddesss of death which is partly correct. She brings the death of ego as the illusionary self-centred view of reality. Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit in cremation grounds because it is our attachment that give rise to the ego. Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of ego that is attached to the body. Its in the cremation ground that the "Pancha Mahabhuta" comes together, and all worldly attachments are absolved. Beings free from the illusion of attachment to the body can see mother Kali as most compassionate one, as she provides liberation to her children. We are the beings of spirit and not the flesh. So liberation can proceed only when our attachment to the body ends.

Kali wears a garland of  fifty skulls ( in most of her iconography) which stand for the fifty letters in the Sanskrit alphabet, and symbolize infinite knowledge. Her griddle of severed human hands signifies work and liberation from the cycle of karma. In her hands she holds the sword which is the destroyer of false consciousness and the eight bounds that bind us. Her three eyes represent past, present and future the three modes of time.