Sohini and Rishi explore the Mahavidyas, particularly Kali and Tara, as embodiments of divine power and wisdom, in the first part of the four-part series, exclusively for Different Truths.
Since 1966, Devadatta Kali has had a close relationship with the Vedanta Society. Devadatta Kali is the author of The Veiling Brilliance: Meditations on Shakti, and In Honor of the Goddess: The Devimahatmya and its Significance, as well as a frequent lecturer at Vedanta Societies and a contributor to Vedanta periodicals all around the world.
The idea that reality is one is the deepest spiritual truth. When personified as the Divine Mother, that truth manifests itself in various ways. The ten Mahavidyas, also known as Wisdom Goddesses, are representations of many facets of divinity that aim to assist the spiritual seeker in achieving emancipation. These forms can be approached by the devotionally minded seeker with a spirit of reverence, love, and escalating intimacy. These same forms can stand in for different stages of inner illumination on the road to enlightenment for a knowledge-focused seeker
Kali: The Power of Conciousness
Kali, who stands for the power of consciousness in its ultimate form, is the first on the list of the ten Mahavidyas, or wisdom aspects, of the Divine Mother. She emphasises the basic Tantric principle that the power of awareness and consciousness itself are the same. She is simultaneously supreme power and ultimate truth.
There are various ways that Kali can manifest for us, but some are more often than others. She is claimed to have a sequence of twelve incarnations, starting with Guhyakali, the highest mystery and the Absolute, in the esoteric Krama system of Kashmir. The remaining eleven types stand in for each successive awareness level, all the way down to our regular, unenlightened state. Kali is the only reality, both in the state of complete formlessness and in each of the innumerable guises she takes. All are Mother, and Mother is all.
The Puranas are the source of Kali’s earliest descriptions, which put her in a combat situation. The Devimahatmya paints a dramatic picture of a battle between an army of demons and Kali and her accompanying deities. Here, Kali has manifested as the personification of Durga’s fury. Her dark flesh hangs slackly from her bones, and she appears to be severely underweight. Red light emanates from her eyes’ hollow sockets. She bears a stick with a skull on top and is covered in tiger hide. She wears a human head garland around her neck. She is a dreadful, bloodthirsty deity, as evidenced by her gaping mouth. The two demon generals Canda and Munda are killed at the end of the conflict, and for this deed, she receives the name Chamunda.
The Raktabija Story
The Raktabija story, shared earlier, initially seems gory, yet it represents a profound realisation. The extraordinary replicative power of Raktabija represents the common awareness of the human mind. One thought leads to another in an unending cycle since the mind is continually thinking. The mind is never totally focused and rarely gets to rest. We can interpret Chamunda as the ability to control the mind’s unending modulations and to completely halt them in the context of Patanjali’s Yogasutra. Yoga is a state of consciousness that occurs when all mental activity (cittavritti) has ended. In this state, consciousness is at peace and bliss within itself. The soul regains awareness of its inherent divinity at that condition of total absorption, symbolised by Chamunda ingesting every drop of blood. In the battle scenario of Chamunda Kali, divided human awareness is absorbed into transcendental oneness.
Outside of warfare, Kali takes on kinder guises. She is shown as Dakshinakali, who is depicted as being young and attractive while standing atop Shiva’s recumbent, ash-covered body and gazing up at her with adoration. Shiva is an unwavering consciousness that is constantly content with itself. The overflowing joy that creates, supports, and withdraws the cosmos is Kali, which is consciousness in motion. The reality of consciousness and its power is the same.
The four-armed Dakshinakali does the varadamudra, or gesture of bestowing blessings, with her lower right hand. She assures us not to be afraid by making the abhayamudra with her top right hand. The sword of knowledge, covered in blood, is held in the upper left hand. This is the ability we can use to see behind all outward manifestations and grasp reality. The capacity for mental distinction, or Viveka, is crucial for spiritual development. A newly cut demon’s head hangs from Kali’s lower left hand. This stands in for the human ego, the limited, erroneous idea of individual selfhood that keeps us bound to this reality. It is a fatal flaw in us. When it is removed, awareness grows infinitely. We are freed and reunited with the Divine.
Kali’s Limitlessness
Being naked represents Kali’s limitlessness. Her infinity means that nothing can contain her. Her free-flowing hair is a further representation of freedom, specifically the liberation from societal convention and all the conditioning that has been placed upon us as well as that which we place upon our minds. Unconditioned consciousness—also known as nirguna chaitanya—is our fundamental nature. The belt of severed human arms around her waist is another representation of freedom. This stands for the divine ability to break free from the chains of karma. It is the power innate in our consciousness—moment-to-moment freedom of choice that can also be seen as a manifestation of heavenly grace.
Kali is adorned with a skull necklace around her neck. Despite looks to the contrary, this is a representation of inventiveness. It is the letter garland or varnamala. Each skull signifies a different way energy manifests itself, one of the sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet. According to physics, the universe is made entirely of energy that vibrates at various frequencies and intensities to create this tangible reality of name and form. The skull symbol also serves as a reminder that all things created eventually perish. Everything in the universe is always changing, and vibration is movement. Time is the only factor that can bring about change, and Kali is time itself—the relentless eater that eventually consumes everything.
Kali Stands for Nonduality
Deep reflection is encouraged by Kali’s iconography in all its manifestations, and this leads to ever-deepening knowledge. In general, we might say that Kali is the union and reconciliation of all the dualities of existence, the light and the dark, the lovely and the terrifying. Since she is none other than Brahman, she stands for absolute nonduality. She is nothing else than her expression of the dualism of this planet.
This is supported by two events in Sri Ramakrishna’s life. When Ramakrishna was a young priest at Dakshinesvar, he had an intolerable yearning for the Kali vision. When he finally felt he could take no more, he took the Mother’s sword from the wall of the shrine room to take his own life. Kali suddenly made herself known. The temple and its environs disappeared at that precise moment, leaving Ramakrishna to see only an unending, dazzling ocean of consciousness. He lost consciousness of the outside world and felt as though he was about to be swallowed up by the advancing waves, but he continued to feel an unceasing stream of pure joy. The Absolute had been revealed by Kali as herself. Ramakrishna once again saw the image, the altar, the offerings, the doorsill, the marble floor, and everything else in the shrine room as nothing more than vibrating consciousness—even a cat he fed the Mother’s food offering to! Kali revealed to him throughout that experience that she is the one who has transformed into everything.
Kali stands for the ability to transition from the Absolute to the Relative and from the Relative to the Absolute. She offers out the hope of a change from the human to the Divine for those of us who mistakenly believe we are mere mortals.
Tara: Saumya and Ugra Forms
As one of the Mahavidyas, Tara follows Kali, whom she resembles greatly, in the order of the Mahavidyas. Tara has a variety of facets, much like Kali does. Both Tibetan Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism place a lot of emphasis on Tara, and among her numerous manifestations are forms that are either mild (saumya) or furious (ugra). The violent forms appear to be preferred by the Hindu Sakta Tantra.
The images of Tara and Kali are so similar that their true identities frequently become muddled. Of course, there is only one reality of divinity, as has been stated since the Rigveda: “Truth is one; the wise call it by numerous names.” Numerous names are repeated throughout both Kali’s and Tara’s thousand-name recitations (sahasranama hymns). Furthermore, Ramprasad frequently utilised the names Tara and Kali interchangeably in his outstanding devotional compositions.
Tara is frequently seen sitting on a white lotus amidst the primordial waters that surround the entire cosmos. Her status as the Mother of the three worlds—the heavens, the atmosphere, and the earth—is evident from this
Tara is Dakshinakali
Like other depictions of Kali, Tara is four-armed and carries a sword in her upper left hand and a severed skull in her lower one. Tara is also known as Dakshinakali. The sword represents the ability of consciousness to remove anything false, dividing, or fragmented. It is known as the “sword of knowledge,” or jnanakhadga.
Our everyday consciousness is constantly forming subtle things—the thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and concepts we derive from our perceptual experience—while also perceiving physical objects. Our limited awareness is centred on the concept of conditioned individual selfhood, sometimes known as ego or personality. The chopped head stands in for that ego. The Divine Mother wields her sword to sever the limiting ego by using consciousness to expose the true Self and help us understand who and what we are. She is also responsible for all our false self-perceptions, including those about our flaws, limits, and inadequacies. She also releases us from the shackles of that training. After being set free, we get to know our genuine selves as identities with the unconditioned Infinite.
The scissors Tara is holding in her upper right hand indicate the same cutting action as the sword, specifically the capacity to sever attachments. She frequently has a blue lotus in her lower right hand, which is supposed to symbolise her open heart. Tara is covered with jewels, a symbol of her beauty and unending abundance. She is flawless, and nothing is missing. Her skin has a deep blue colour, almost like the night sky. That also represents her limitlessness. She is not only limitless but also all-knowing. Her three eyes represent the ability to see into the past, present, and future.
Tara wears her hair in a meticulously styled topknot, in contrast to Kali, whose hair is loose and untamed dreadlocks (jata). Tara’s hair is a representation of yogic asceticism, or the ability to control and regulate the activity of the mind to gain Self-knowledge via self-mastery, in contrast to Kali’s hair, which stands for complete liberation from restraint.
She has a moving tongue, a mouth that looks dreadful, terrifying teeth. She is all-devouring, unstoppable time, like Kali.
Wild and Unruly
Her waist is encircled by a tiger skin. This represents her liminal personality because she represents the limit of civilised order. She tends to be wild and unruly. Nothing, not even the rules of human society, can contain her since she is unconstrained. Nonetheless, some claim that her simple attire indicates that she either represents the final stage before emancipation or the initial stage of cosmic emanation. Like Kali, whose total lack of clothing represents infinity and complete freedom, she is not entirely naked.
Her head is surrounded by a nimbus or halo of light, denoting her glory. The ten-headed serpent Akshobhya, which rises above it, is a representation of Shiva’s consciousness, which is an unagitated state of consciousness. It is the state of complete being-awareness-bliss (saccidananda). This is both the Mother’s and our genuine natures (svasvarupa), the ultimate truth. The Yogasutra (1.2), in which Patanjali describes yoga as the suspension of all activity within the specific field of consciousness, makes a similar statement (yogas cittavrittinirodhah). Consciousness can no longer be altered and conditioned as thought waves after it stops being active (vritti). The projections and contents of consciousness are these thought waves. Pure awareness and the sensation of undivided, non-dual oneness are the only things left in the silence.
Lord Shiva’s corpse, which is still beneath Tara as she sits, is in a lifeless state. There are various interpretations of this. It might imply that Mother is preeminent, but it might also point out the reciprocal importance of her bond with Shiva. She is the dynamism that enables the play of the universe, and he is the support that holds her up. Not only are Shiva and Sakti mutually reliant, but they are also one reality. Not only are consciousness and its power intertwined, but they are also the same thing. Sakti would not exist without Shiva, and Shiva would not have any expression without Sakti.
Mother Resembles Shiva
This concept is reinforced by the serpent Akshobhya. In all her radiance, Mother resembles Shiva, who is consciousness-in-itself, immobile and unaffected, the eternal, self-luminous reality. The significance of this emblem confirms Tara’s strong relationship with Kali, who is at the top of the list of Mahavidyas. In her unique way, Tara exemplifies a close second to Kali in terms of wisdom or liberating knowledge. It is conceivable to see Tara as the penultimate stage in the process of enlightenment, which is the collapse of the human ego, and the serpent Akshobhya as a symbol of the human race’s intrinsic capacity for enlightenment.
Death and dissolution are deeply linked to both Tara and Kali. Tara is more frequently connected with fire than Kali, notably the fires of the cremation site, whereas Kali is frequently described as the power of time (kala), which inevitably causes all created things to perish. Smasanabhairavi, which means “the awful one of the cremation sites,” is one of her names. It’s crucial to keep in mind that fire symbolises both purification and transformation in addition to destruction.
Death is a common theme in Tara’s symbology, albeit only in the broadest sense. The death it alludes to is the death of the ego, the fictitious sense of self that holds a person captive, constantly reactive, and enslaved to all of life’s ups and downs. Similar to Kali, Tara is occasionally depicted wearing a girdle made of severed human arms as a representation of her power to free us from the effects of karma. Instead of being viewed as instruments of death, the scissors and sword could be viewed as means of removing the ego, the false sense of self that confines, defines, and ties.
The word tri, which means “to cross,” is where Tara gets her name. Samsaratarini, which means “she who carries across the ocean of worldly existence,” is one of her epithets. So, Tara is the ever-generous liberator.
In addition to all of this, Tara represents maternal tenderness. Her mother loves her without conditions, and she freely shares her empowering slogan with everyone.
(To be continued)
Cowritten by Rishi Dasgupta
Rishi Dasgupta, a Masters in Economics from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, is a millennial, multilingual, global citizen, currently pursuing a career in the UK. An accomplished guitarist and gamer, his myriad pursuits extend to the study of the ancient philosophies and mythologies of India. ‘Adi Shiva: The Philosophy of Cosmic Unity’ is Rishi’s second book as co-author.
Feature picture from Wikipedia.org
By