Girl crush

Readers, meet Kali—the Hindu goddess of destruction and purity.

Hinduism is a notoriously difficult religion to understand partially because it involves so many gods, each of whom seems to have a bazillion different incarnations and avatars, and partially because it is a religion quite tolerant of being practiced in a diversity of ways by the millions (billions?) of its devotees.  (Sometimes it feels like every Indian has his or her own form of practice.) For now I’ve stuck with learning about the individual gods as they come to my attention in the museums, temples and stories. Last spring I was a big fan of Ganesha, the elephant headed god, who my Hindu colleagues tell me is a “good starter god.” Then my interest shifted to the goddess Saraswati, who presides over the realms of knowledge and arts, when my visit to Calcutta coincided with her festival there (celebrated, apparently, by lots of dancing in front of pop-up Saraswati shrines—she’s also a goddess of dance).

However, when I came across the above picture of Kali during my recent trip to Varanasi and was told the story of her full-throttle bad-assery, my allegiance one again shifted. Kali is a no-holds barred, kick ass and completely crazy kinda chick.  Please note, for example, her blood-stained machete, her necklace of decapitated heads and her skirt of severed hands. And, of course, the 80's rockstar tongue--always out, ready to give anyone a good tongue-smackdown (if the machete doesn't do the trick). That guy beneath her feet? Yeah, that's her husband Shiva--the god of destruction himself!

Kali's origin story, as I’ve been told it, is as follows:

There was an evil demon that was running around earth doing bad demony things everywhere. The people of the world complained, and Kali (an incarnation of Parvati, the wife of Shiva) came down to do battle with the demon. She chopped off its head but, annoying demon-style, in every place that a drop of demon blood hit the earth a new demon sprung up—thus creating an army of demons. Kali freaked out, turned black, stuck out her tongue, and was overtaken by extreme blood lust. She started killing everything that had any bit of sin in it, demons and people alike. She strung together decapitated heads to make herself a necklace and chopped off hands to make herself a (actually very tasteful) A-line skirt.

It was probably around the time that she started prancing around in her severed-hand skirt that someone decided it was time to wake-up her husband. Shiva looked at the situation and was basically like “Well, she’s right, you know. You are all sinners.”  But, he ultimately decided that the decapitated head jewelry was probably not the best look for his missus so he very craftily reduced himself in size until he was just as big as the other sinners Kali was stamping on. Low and behold Kali, in her bloodlust, didn’t notice her husband in the crowd and stepped on him.  Naturally, stepping on one’s husband in a fit of bloodlust is not very nice, and so Kali realized that she herself had just become a sinner. Well, this realization—and that fact that she is actually standing on her husband, who might be kinda ticked at her in the morning—calms her down a bit. 

But, just a bit.

 

That’s Kali’s story. I’m not sure what draws me to it right now, actually, since I'm not usually a big fan of destruction and severed body parts. (Note though, Kali only destroys evil things--so still a heroic figure). I think I just like the fact that in the middle of India—this country where the submissiveness and timidity of a woman are considered paradigm virtues—there also exists this powerful kung fu goddess who is regularly pictured just kicking the shit out of everything she encounters. So, yeah...as of late I've got a bit of a Kali girl crush.